Acura EL

So what exactly is an Acura EL? The EL was an entry-level luxury car built by Acura for the Canadian market. Sharing a chassis and drive train with the Honda Civic, the EL 1.6 debuted in 1997. This first generation was produced until 2000, and was replaced by the EL 1.7. Like the 1.6, it was essentially a rebadged version of the Civic.

In late summer 2014, I purchased a 1999 Acura EL in Gresham, Oregon. I was looking for a Civic, but the rare, slightly offbeat nature of the EL appealed to me. Also, the car was being sold by a man to pay his daughter’s legal fees after she was arrested for dealing heroin. So it’s got a crazy backstory, amirite?

The EL is similar, but not identical to the Honda Civic. I built this page to chronicle my attempts to maintain and upgrade this odd duck, and hopefully guide others (Please see the Interchangeability page if you want to jump straight to the nuts and bolts part of the site). As I own a first-generation EL (97-00), I will be limiting my scope to these years, not the later models.