August 21st, 2021 - Show And Shine at Crowfoot Village Honda in Calgary, Alberta

 August 21st, 2021 - Show And Shine at Village Honda in Calgary, Alberta

Surfing Facebook last week I ran into a post for a Honda Show and Shine event at Village Honda in the Northwest Auto Mall, a couple dealerships over from Charlesglen Toyota where the Steel Dreamz show was held back in 2017. 

Having the car back on the road and mostly ready for a show, save for a major clean and detail. The only real downsides were: the coming week I was going to be insanely busy at work so there'd be no time for proper detail, and the rain in the forecast every day all week would make getting even an exterior wash difficult.  Despite these challenges, it still seemed like a no-brainer to register and take the CR-X. 

Fortunately, the weather cleared up enough on the Wednesday before the show that I was able to get to the car wash to give her a bath and wash the wheels, which were filthy with a few years' worth of brake dust. I used a chamois to try and dry the car so that there would be no water spots and used the California Blade and squeegee to try and dry the windows and glass roof. 

Once dry, I saw that the chamois and squeegee work wasn't good enough so I had to get some Meguire's Quick Detail and some microfiber cloths, as well as clean the outside of the windows by hand. Then she started to look a little better but unfortunately, I had no time to clean the engine bay. 

The evening before the show my old friend Dieter stopped by with a red CRX he'd recently insured. He bought it during the pandemic, but I hadn't seen yet due to Covid restrictions last year. It used belong to a former customer of his when he was working at Acura. He had helped him order all of the parts to restore the car and so when he needed to sell the CRX, he reached out to Dieter, knowing that it would have a good home. 

Dieter invited me to join him and his friends for a small meet-up prior to the show and shine. He would be bringing his Integra Type R replica to the show. 

After Dieter left, I dug out some props for the car show: Domokun, Asimo and Dampachi stuffies, the NOS pillow and some Yen for the coin box as well as some empty bottles of Ramune soda and other Japanese snack "garbage" to put in the Honda Access trash box.

The next day, I wanted to hit drive thru for some breakfast before meeting up with Dieter and his friends. I used to be limited to a) reversing in the drive thru or 2) going inside to buy my food. Then I realized that in the four years since my CR-X was last on the road, there’s now curbside pickup! Then I remembered McDonalds has curbside pickup. Thanks, Covid!

Had my breakfast, and met up with Dieter and his friends, all of whom had some amazing cars: there was Dieter's Type R, Roberto's 4th gen Civic hatch, an RSX, a 6th gen Civic in mint condition and an NSX. Shortly after 10am we headed to the show to get registered, parked and set up. 

I was placed next to another CRX, a white 1989 Si in immaculate condition. Owned by the original owner, Ed, he bought it from T&T Honda in December 1989. Being a local Calgary car, it's incredibly obvious that he's taken amazing care of it considering the toll our Canadian winters take on vehicles, what with the salt and gravel used 8 months out of the year. 

In total, there were three CRXs at the show; two JDM examples (including mine) and Ed's Canadian Si. I didn't see any first gens or delSols at the show. The other JDM CR-X was also black and had SSR Type-X wheels, just as my own did when it first arrived in Canada. 

Dieter brought his recently finished Integra Type R replica to the show. His Type R started out life as a JDM DC2 SiR-G but he'd had it resto-modded into a Type R clone with all high-end parts like Spoon, Cusco, Mugen.

The show was from 12 noon until 4pm and the weather forecast for Saturday turned out to be very accurate: mostly cloudy with some sunny breaks. It was a little more windy than I'd expected, which kept it cool. For most of the afternoon, the clouds off in the distance looked rather ominous. That, I think, kept some people away, but the turnout of cars and spectators was really quite good all things considered. The rain eventually started but it started just at 4pm when the show was winding down. Couldn't have asked for better timing, if you ask me.

The CR-X was enjoyed by a lot of people, and the props were a big hit, especially the Tomica turntables with CRX diecasts spinning away in the hatch area. I met a lot of really nice people and saw some amazing Hondas and received a lot of positive feedback on my little work-in-progress. 

Can't wait for next year!!

Pictures of my car:

Pictures of the other cars:

Remember, this blog was written in chronological order so, you will need to click OLDER POSTS to move forward in time, and click NEWER POSTS to go backwards.