Junkyard Gem: 1998 Honda Accord Sawzall 2-Seater

It’s a gearhead tradition: you have a battered old vehicle that’s just about fully depreciated, you just watched all of the Mad Max movies in one sitting, and you own a reciprocating saw and some welding equipment. Soon enough, you have turned a Bronco into a pickup, created a Volvo 244 roadster, crafted a Ford Tauruschero truck, BRAT-ified a Subaru wagon, built a numbers-matching Geo El Metro-amino… or transformed a boring Accord sedan into a sporty two-seater. That last example is what we’ve got in this Denver-area self-service wrecking yard. Let’s take a closer look.

I know of one Sawzall Roadster that is still on the road after 30 years, but it benefited from extensive chassis strengthening after the cutting was done. This car got the quick-and-dirty shorty treatment: slice a section out of the middle while leaving the wiring, brake lines, and fuel lines uncut, zap the two halves together, bend all the metal lines so they don’t scrape the ground and then tie the excess wiring harnesses in knots to get them out of the way.

A bit of excess sheet-metal tacked over the seam, and the interior will be (sort of) weatherproof. It appears that no attempt was made to make shortened doors, so riding in this car must have been a noisy, open-air experience.

The overall length of the passenger compartment was determined by the size of the driver, who had to sit in what used to be the back seat. I wonder if the rear shoulder belts will latch into the front receptacles.

A car like this needs flames, of course.

The decklid/exhaust treatment is something of a puzzle; looks like the decklid got flipped around and welded into place, in order to support the stack-style exhaust pipe.

It’s a 5-speed car, but the tachometer must have been hard to read with this big PUPPIES decal in the way.

The windshield has a sunshade created from hundreds of stickers.

It’s no ’73 Mercury Montego MX Brougham Sawzall Roadster, of course, but still one of the better junkyard customizations I’ve seen during my car-graveyard travels.

An Accord… like no other.

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