A beautiful black Honda Legend sedan, seen in Wangjing District in Beijing. Wangjing is always an excellent area to find older Japanese and Korean cars. The legendary Legend was in good shape; clean and well-maintained, without any sign of its age.
The third generation KA9 Honda Legend was manufactured from 1995 until 2004 with a facelift in 1999. Our black Beijing car is a pre-facelift model. Power came from a 3.5 liter V6 engine, good for 215 hp and 300 Nm. In the United States, it was marketed as the Acura RL.
The KA9 was not officially marketed in China, but quite some examples made it to Chinese shores in other ways, so it is not an ultra-rare car.
Simple but classy wheel covers.
The interior was mostly original, bar for a compass-clock unit above the vents and an ugly gear-knob cover. The seats look rather worn and are in need of some urgent maintenance.
Floor mats are after-market.
Black license plates were issued to foreign-owned companies from the 1980s to the early 2000s. These companies could buy a car locally, and they were also allowed to import their own cars.
In the old days, black-plated cars had some privileges comparable to diplomatic cars; no police officer would dare to stop them and they could basically park wherever they wanted without fear of a fine.
Nowadays, a black-plated car is counted just like all the others. The government does not issue new black plates anymore but those who have one can keep it until eternity.
The badge needs re-alignment.
Have you seen a similar Honda Legend sedan in China? Show us! You can now upload images in the comments.