The second-generation Honda Accord never gets as much attention as the first, and while it isn’t as significant a car on a global scale, it was the next step in Honda’s climb up the sales ladder in North America and set the stage for all of Honda’s subsequent car manufacturing efforts here. Of course, you can’t talk about the Accord Mk2 without talking about its blockbuster predecessor.

The original Mk1 Honda Accord, new in the summer of 1976, resembled a kind of Japanese Volkswagen Scirocco, and in an alternate universe, the Honda might have been meant to rival the long-running VW coupe. But while the fastback coupe shape and front-drive format were similar, the Honda was generally more pedestrian and not necessarily intended to be “sporty.” The modern popular Accord template crystallized two years later, in the fall of 1978, when the Japanese brand added a four-door sedan body to the lineup, greatly expanding its appeal.

Honda’s second-generation Accord, introduced in the fall of 1981, made only incremental changes to the formula in terms of the product. It was meant to build on things customers liked about the original, which was still a pretty sophisticated car compared to the old-fashioned Toyota Corona or various Detroitmobiles. The Mk2 Accord looked and felt like an updated Mk1, squarer and bigger but not so different, and perhaps even less exciting.

Accord Mk2: Coming to America

But the largely unheralded 2nd-Gen Accord was at the center of major industry changes. It’s most noteworthy for being the first Japanese car built in the USA. Not the first foreign car, mind you, or the first Japanese product (that honor goes to Nissan, who built their first pickup in Smyrna, Tennessee in 1983), but definitely the first, and most important, “foreign” car built here.

There’s more of a history of this than most people realize.

In the early days of motoring, several foreign automakers established U.S. offices where cars were built from knock-down kits or built locally under license. Daimler was the first manufacturer to do this in the 19th century. Later, in 1910, Fiat opened a factory in Poughkeepsie, New York, about 50 miles north of the big Maxwell (later GM) factory in Tarrytown. From 1919 to 1926, Rolls-Royce ran a factory in Springfield, Massachusetts.

But all that was ancient, and largely forgotten, history in 1980. Only Volkswagen had produced “foreign” cars in the U.S. in the post-ww2 era, buying a disused plant from Chrysler and setting up production at Westmoreland, Pennsylvania in 1978.

Honda Marysville

By then, Honda was already contemplating building products in-country for its largest export market. The company began making motorcycles in Marysville, Ohio, in 1979 and decided soon after to build a brand-new car facility in the same town.

Honda’s Marysville Auto Plant was finished in 1982 and began building 2nd-gen Accord sedans that November. At first, it built only sedans, and built them only for the Eastern half of the United States (West Coast ports being cheaper for landing cars from Japan). But by 1984, when the 2nd-gen Accord got a visual and mechanical refresh, most U.S. Accords came from Marysville.

On the one hand, Marysville was a huge gamble. VW’s experience managing U.S. suppliers, labor, and production was mixed at best, and many—industry analysts and the public alike—doubted a rust-belt plant could match a Japanese one on quality.

On the other hand, the move looked like a stroke of genius when Japan agreed to Voluntary Export Restrictions (VERs) in 1981, which limited the number of cars Japanese companies could export to the U.S. to 1,680,000 cars per annum. Those limits, of course, didn’t apply to cars built domestically in the U.S., and because demand was so strong, Honda could charge more for them than it had before.

The VERs did not blunt the demand for Japanese cars, but it did make them more expensive. If you can only sell a limited number of cars and buyers are lining up to pay for them—and there were literally waiting lists for Japanese cars in the early 80s, including the Accord and even after Marysville came online—then you should sell the higher-profit ones. Executives in Japan were no doubt privately thanking President Reagan for his misguided ideas about trade.

Waiting lists and higher profits also provoked a wave of Marysville imitators nationwide from Toyota, Subaru, Mazda and others. Some were partners with Domestic manufacturers (NUMMI, a Toyota-GM joint venture and Diamond-Star, a partnership between Chrysler and Mitsubishi), while others (Subaru and Isuzu’s joint facility in Indiana) were entirely new ventures.

Accord Mk2

As a car, the Accord Mk2 was evolutionary in style and feel. Good to drive, but generally unexciting. the 1982 and 1983 cars had just one engine in America, a 75hp carbureted 1.8L “EK” CVCC.

At first, the second-gen cars had a more chrome-heavy look that was essentially a simple evolution of the Mk1, but with rectangular lights. In foreign markets, they got flush “aero” units, but those lights weren’t legal in America until the time of the third-gen car. 1984 saw much of the chrome excised in favor of body-color plastic trim and a simplified front and rear design. More importantly, it got updated engines.

1984 brought a new 1.8L “ES2” four with 86 horsepower, a nearly 15% bump in power, and 1985 saw an optional 101-horse ES3 1.8L added in the top-spec SE-i. With just 2,200 lbs. to haul around, the SE-i was probably the first “exciting” Accord, although Honda would have sent you to the Prelude if you were looking for “sporty” at that time.

Thanks to the additional power, the 1984-85 Accords were altogether more desirable than the 1982-83 cars, and the ‘85 SE-is were the best of all. Domestic car loyalty was still extremely strong in 1984-85, but with their conservative looks and high quality, they made deep inroads into GM, Ford, and Chrysler territory, converting many customers who drove up on a rusty Olds Omega or Plymouth Volare.

Accord sales reached a quarter-million units a year for the first time in 1984, also making its first entry onto the 10-best-selling-cars list, and did not look back until Covid interfered with sales and supply in 2020.

As it happened, there turned out to be no discernible difference in quality between the Marysville and Saitama-built Accords, a happy result for both workers and Honda. Considering that these cars were only built for two years in this format, a spectacular number of them seem to survive today. All three cars in this story were spied in Washington State from 2016 to 2021.