Car And Driver Once Made A Twin-Engined Honda CRX And It’s For Sale Again

The Honda CRX is one of the most beloved sport compacts of the 1980s. Its light weight offered chuckable handling and it combined sporty Kammback styling with an affordable sticker price. The only problem was that it didn’t have a whole lot of power. Three decades ago, Car and Driver solved that problem in the funniest way possible.

As retold by Car and Driver, the project was the brainchild of the magazine’s then-editor, Don Sherman. “I saw how tidy the driveline was in the CRX,” Sherman recalled. “And the thought occurred to me, why not two of them?” Soon enough, Honda was on board, and the project was underway to build a twin-engine beast.

You might imagine that this car would be a dusty wreck by now, languishing in some forgotten storage lot. Joy of joys, though—it’s survived, and what’s more, it’s a runner. In fact, it’s now on sale at Bring a Trailer. Let’s look at the history of this fine machine from the golden era of auto magazines, and what it’s capable of today.

Times Two

The Honda CRX debuted in America in 1983 for the 1984 model year. Based on the Civic, to the point that it appeared in the same brochure, it took the compact’s underpinnings and drivetrain but wrapped them in a sportier body.

Honda effectively offered two versions—economy and sport—with 1.3 and 1.5-liter four-cylinder engines, respectively. It was here that the model was somewhat lacking for the US market. JDM and European CRXs got 80 hp from the 1.3-liter carbureted engine and 110 hp from the fuel-injected 1.5-liter engine. However, US models were available with carburetors only, with the 1.3- and 1.5-liter engines delivering just 60 hp and 76 hp respectively.

While CRX was a featherweight at just 1,819 pounds, it was nonetheless lacking in the grunt department. That inspired the Car and Driver project, which aimed to double the horsepower in the most straightforward yet complicated way possible—by using two engines.

As capable as automotive writers were in the 1980s, the Car and Driver team wasn’t outright capable of pulling off this build alone. Thankfully, Honda got on board and donated a wrecked car with a good drivetrain, along with other parts for the swap. Los Angeles speed shop Racing Beat was then tapped to execute the actual build, installing in a second 1.5-liter CRX engine in the rear of the vehicle. In order to make the build as practical as possible, both engines were equipped with the three-speed automatic.

A lot of hard work went into the build. The results of the dual-engine conversion, though, were just a shade less than amazing. Despite the step up from 76 to 152 horsepower, the CRX also suffered a weight penalty from the second engine and gearbox, landing somewhere around 2,450 pounds. It was faster, but not by much. The twin-engined car achieved a 16.0 second quarter mile, versus 17.4 seconds for a stock CRX.

The solution was straightforward enough: install hotter engines. The car was given a pair of 1.8-liter engines from the Honda Accord, complete with PGM-FI fuel injection and their standard four-speed auto boxes. They were good for 101 horsepower each, along with 108 pound-feet of torque. This gave the car a total of 202 horsepower, which was more power than most V8 Camaros in 1985. With the added grunt, the twin-engine CRX achieved zero to 60 mph in just 6.2 seconds, and the quarter mile passed by in just 14.5. Those were swift figures in the mid-1980s.

According to Car and Driver, the car was eventually sold after the project was completed. It later ended up in Florida for a few decades, where it was found in non-running condition in 2012. In 2023,  it was picked up by Randy Carlson, who you might know as a co-host from Jay Leno’s Garage. He was able to get it running again and demonstrated its abilities on the show in late 2024.

Today

The car has come to be known as the CR-X², including the hyphen that Honda used in some international markets. It was also known as Synchronicity (and later Super Synchronicity) when it appeared in Car and Driver. Whatever you call it, the car is now up for sale on Bring a Trailer, with no reserve.

Despite the decades that have passed, the car presents well, thanks largely to the work put in by Carlson. He’s documented the work on his YouTube channel Carchaeology, where he covers jobs like replacing the fuel tank and some light cosmetic restoration jobs. Today, the car proudly wears CR-X² decals, as well as the Car and Driver logo on the flanks. The Mugen body kit is in fine form, as are the perfectly-period 15-inch MSW alloy wheels.

What’s obvious from the photos is the quality of the build. The original dual-engine install was attended to with great attention to detail, with the entire engine, transaxle, and front subframe fitted into the rear of the car.  A tidy enclosure was built around the rear engine to create an effective firewall between it and the cabin, which was fully trimmed and carpeted to appear almost stock. The two engines were set up to share a single cooling system, with a larger radiator installed up front to suit.

Beyond the decals, there are other tells that this is a special CR-X. If the quad exhausts aren’t enough, the rows of extra gauges in the cabin help tell the story. There’s also the air intake neatly integrated into the fuel filler cutout.

In case you’re wondering about the specifics of dual-engine operation, it’s pretty elegant. As demonstrated in a video on the listing, the engines are started separately. The key is turned to the Start position as per normal to fire the first engine. When it’s running, the key returns to ON as you’d expect. A toggle switch is then flicked, and then the key can be turned to start once more to fire the second engine.

As for the transmission, a single Accord shifter is hooked to both transmissions to shift them in unison. Reportedly, the shift feel isn’t that unusual—and as you’re just putting it in drive, it’s not a big issue. It’s also worth noting that only the front engine has an alternator—so you won’t get heaps far if you try and drive on the rear engine alone.

An extra joy is the memorabilia that comes with the sale. Buy the car, and you get a treasure trove of internal memos and communiques to Honda, invoices, and multiple magazines documenting the project. There’s a ton of history here, and it’s all well-preserved. It’s funny to think—this is all a product of the typewriter and magazine era. If you tried this with a modern car blog build, you’d get a washed-out inkjet print of some articles at best.

Normally, an automatic CRX would be far less interesting than a well-preserved manual. In this case, though, the dual Accord engine swap is hard to top for sheer originality and imagination. Bidding sits at $20,000, with the auction slated to end in approximately 7 days at the time of writing. If you want one of the most unique Honda CRXs ever built, you’ll want to bring a chubby checkbook to this auction.

Image credits: Bring a Trailer
Top graphic: Bring a Trailer; Car And Driver