If ONLY it was a 5 speed!!
 

Some of you may know, I go to a lot of car auctions as part of my job. Both public auctions and dealer only auctions. I was at the dealer auction today and I saw something I will never see again! I just thought you might like to hear about it. It was a 1999 Honda Civic DX hatchback. Silver, with a black interior. And get this - 26000 KMs on it. That's like 16000 miles! And the mileage was legit! I checked the VIN and it's the real deal. It still smelled new inside. If it had been a 5 speed I would have bought it! But sadly it was an automatic. Can you imagine how long that car would last someone that wanted to hypermile it? Just in case you were wondering, it brought a high bid of $4700, and the reserve was $5500. Like I said, if it had been a 5 speed I would have paid the reserve just to get it, that car will last a smart owner 10 years at least I'd think!

Wow! Agreed - that would have been quite a catch as a 5-speed.

Last summer I spotted an improbably pristine looking, un-modified, 1989-ish Civic DX hatch. I went over to have a peek, and it was indeed all original. I peeked in the window and the odometer said 60k km (~40k miles). Also automatic. :)

Your story makes me think: I bet the vast majority of ultra-low miles/km used cars are automatics, because I figure the majority of ultra-low miles/km cars are owned by seniors.

How much work to do a tranny swap on that? Sounds worth it.

I've done the manual swap on a Metro. It's not too hard. I can't imagine a Civic being much different. Having a manual donor car makes it a lot easier.

I just did I tranny swap on my truck. I can't imagine it being too much harder on a small car than a giant truck. And it wasn't hard at all.
The 5 spd I put in is the reason for my recent gains.
I'll do a write up of the process as soon as I get home where the pictures are, in 2 weeks