1981 Honda Accord SE Pushes Honda into $10K Territory

Car and Driver

10-06-2025

From the March 1981 issue of Car and Driver.
The rep for the American Honda Motor Company, Inc., when he handed over the keys to the fresh-off-the-boat 1981 Accord SE, lowered his voice to a conspiratorial tone and said, "This is just a little testing of the waters—to see if Honda can sell in the BMW price range."
"SE," in case you haven't heard, stands for "Special Edition," and those words will ap­pear in delicate chrome script on the Glacier Grey Metallic flanks of a mere 3000 Accord four-doors this year. These specially anoint­ed sedans will carry every option in the Hon­da book, including power windows, power steering, power brakes, Michelin radials, four-speaker AM/FM/cassette stereo, and air conditioning. Beyond that extends a long list of fitments that are not in the Honda book­—at least they weren't until now—including power antenna, folding rear-seat armrest, al­loy wheels, special gray deep-pile carpeting, and genuine Connolly leather on the seats. This, you might conclude, is intended to be one plush little unit.
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Patrick Bedard
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Car and Driver
Hearing all of this, and knowing how crazy car prices have become in recent months, we ventured a tentative "How much?"
"Only $9950," was the answer.
Aargh! A $10,000 Honda!
"That's the five-speed. The automatic is 10,200," he said.
How can a Honda cost $10,000? You guys keep it simple, right? You're the company that removed the stigma from small-car own­ership. It was okay to have a Honda. Rich people bought them. But this Special Edition is a cop-out. Any company can be in the stig­ma-free-small-car business if it charges a lot of money.
"Yeah, but the SE has all the stuff. You take your base Accord at $7435, add $600 for air, $500 for the digital cassette radio. Al­ready it's $8500. This is a great deal."
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Patrick Bedard
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Car and Driver
Well, folks, maybe it is. But looking at the parts list, we come away with the idea that a few bits of trim add 1500 bucks to the price. Of a Honda. It wasn't so long ago that you could get a whole Honda for that money.
For the full several hundred miles of our evaluation drive, this five-digit price kept nagging at the old editorial sense of value. This is a $10,000 Honda? And if it is, then what must rutabagas be going for down at the Hy-Vee?
Certainly the Special Edition gives every indication of being a Honda. It has all those little idiosyncrasies we've grown accustomed to: the soft chattering when you engage the clutch and the gentle bucking of the engine when you ask it to accelerate from low revs.
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Patrick Bedard
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Car and Driver
But the old Honda charm is there, too. The engine climbs happily to the redline. The body doesn't creak and groan. The inte­rior is perfectly assembled—nary a loose thread or smear of adhesive to catch the crit­ical eye.
And the luxury touches are so tastefully and confidently done. The trunk is thickly carpeted and fitted with small bins on the sides to hold minor objects that you don't want to roll around. The interior is a light dove gray, very popular at Ford a few years back but still fashionable enough. And the seats really are leather, exuding just a trace of the aroma that Connolly also imparts to every Rolls-Royce and Jaguar.
Moreover, the Special Edition seems to work better than any Accord we've ever driv­en. The usually flaccid shock absorbers seem a bit tauter. The shape of the seat is correct, its depression for your butt back where it be­longs now, rather than halfway forward in typical Japanese fashion. The power steering isn't as numb as it used to be. The direction­al stability is better. The car more graceful. Its mood more, well, BMW-like.
Of course, we car critics can still find faults. The power-window controls are big and bulky, looking very much like the tack­-ons they are. The stereo sounds as though it has K-mart speakers. And the radio itself has so many tiny buttons, with such small de­scriptions of what they do, that you practical­ly have to pull over to the side of the road just to change from AM to FM.
But it'll sure do some tricks, this radio, and the car around it is such a jewel that maybe $10,000 really is fair. Certainly there's noth­ing else on the market with similar quality, luxury, and efficiency for ten grand.
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Patrick Bedard
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Car and Driver
Just when we had convinced ourselves that there is value in a $10,000 Honda, we saw a dealer ad in the classified section of the New York Times brazenly offering an SE five-speed for $13,950. Apparently while the American Honda Motor Company is merely testing the BMW waters, dealers are jumping right in.
They may be avaricious and unconsciona­ble opportunists, the car dealers of this coun­try, but one thing you have to give them: they do know what cars are worth.
Specifications
Specifications
1981 Honda Accord
Vehicle Type: front-engine, front-wheel-drive, 4-passenger, 4-door sedan
PRICE
Base/As-Tested: $9950/$9950
ENGINE
SOHC inline-4, iron block and aluminum head
Displacement: 107 in3, 1750 cm3
Power: 75 hp @ 4500 rpm
TRANSMISSION
5-speed manual
DIMENSIONS
Wheelbase: 93.7 in
Length: 171.9 in
Curb Weight (C/D est): 2250 lb
EPA FUEL ECONOMY
City: 27 mpg