1978 Honda Civic CVCC: The 216hp Los Angeles Sleeper That Looks Completely Stock

Original story and photography by Peter Edenberg, first published at  Fascinating Cars Instagram: @thefascinatingcars, reproduced here with reference and acknowledgement to the original source and author. Owner: Juan Salguero | Instagram: @78b18cvcc  | Location: Long Beach, Los Angeles, California

A Master of Details

Next to me in a garage in Los Angeles stands Juan Salguero — a man who has spent decades perfecting the art of building cars that everyone sees but very few truly notice.

After a week of back-and-forth messages about meeting at a Cars and Coffee event, we ended up at Juan's second garage, tucked into the heart of the city. A 1970 Toyota FJ40 in white sits just inside the door — tinted windows, solid rugged body, immediately making you think of a South American gangster film. Along the wall: a 1979 Honda Accord, a 1954 oval-window Beetle, and the bare shell of a first-generation Honda Civic CVCC.

Every car has its own space, resting on a neat red felt mat. The lighting is calm, close to perfect. It's the garage of someone who thinks about everything, all the time.

But the star of the show isn't here. It's at a car event in Orange County.

"How about we catch up later this week so you can take a look at it?" Juan asks. The answer's obvious. Of course.

The First Car He Ever Had

Later that week at Juan's home garage in Long Beach, the 1978 Honda Civic CVCC finally appears. And the moment you see it, you understand why he's kept it for over twenty years.

This was his first car. He was sixteen when he got the keys, and he never gave them back.

"This is my first car. It's emotionally special to me."

"I got it from my grandmother — she wasn't actually my grandmother, but she worked with my mother and became like one to me. She drove the car five miles every day, Monday through Friday, from 1978 until I got it — twenty years ago."

That backstory matters. It explains why the entire build philosophy behind this Civic is built around preservation, not transformation. The goal was never to turn it into something else. The goal was to honour it — just with significantly more horsepower underneath.

Growing Up in South Central

Juan grew up in South Central Los Angeles — a neighbourhood that carries a weight of stereotype that, as he explains, rarely matches the reality of the people actually living there.

"That area is very stereotyped for people who aren't from there. And maybe that's not so strange, considering all the music and movies about South Central tend to show exactly that side of it."

"Where I grew up as a kid, we rode bikes, played football, and had fun in the streets just like anyone else. Sure, things could get messy when people came in from the other side and started trouble — but where isn't it like that?"

His father disappeared early, serving 25 years and being deported after that. His mother raised the family alone. By sixteen, Juan was already working nights and weekends for a lighting company alongside going to school — which, by his own admission, was never really his thing.

Over the years, his role at the company grew. Around twenty-five, the American dream started taking shape — not through luck, but through years of grinding. Today his lighting company handles close to 400 shows a year. The Civic collection in the garage is what that hard work looks like in physical form.

The Build Philosophy — Original, But Not

Standing beside the 1978 Honda Civic CVCC, your first instinct is that it's stock. And that's entirely intentional.

"I want the car to look and feel as original as possible — that's my goal."

For the first eight to ten years of ownership, Juan drove it completely stock. If it broke, it broke. That was the mindset. When the money finally stabilised and the vision became achievable, he knew exactly what he wanted — a car that reads as factory to 95% of the people who see it, while being 100% modified underneath.

The shimmering grey Lexus paint is the first hint something's different. The wheels — designed by Juan himself and only back from manufacturing the week before this visit — are another. Look closer and you'll notice the front fenders are widened by 1.5 inches, the rear by 3 inches, to clear the wider rubber. It's such a small difference from the original shell that it's easy to miss unless you're looking for it.

"What gives it away on the outside is that the front fenders are widened by 1.5 inches and the rear by 3 inches. The wider tyres have to fit, you know. But it's still such a small difference from the original that it's hard to tell."

The custom rims turned out to be a few millimetres too wide — discovered the hard way when Juan went over a highway bump and felt it through his entire body as the wheel hit the front fender.

"We'll just have to repaint it — nothing else we can do about it," he says, completely unbothered.

The bumper is another example of Juan's obsessive thoughtfulness. The original 1978 Civic bumper is plastic and sits several centimetres proud of the body. The one on this car is from a 1975 model — cut, reshaped, and fitted to hug the body tightly.

"It's been cut and reshaped to hug the front and rear of the car tightly. This one works much better, yet still feels original."

Inside — Factory, Almost

The interior is rebuilt from scratch to look completely factory — and it pulls it off. Every detail has been recreated or sourced new, nothing looks stripped or aftermarket. Nothing feels out of place.

Almost nothing.

"Well… okay, it's not original. Something has to stand out."

The Terminator-style gear lever is the one concession to personality in an otherwise pristine recreation of the original cabin. And honestly, it works perfectly — a single subversive touch in a car that otherwise refuses to give itself away.

What's Under the Bonnet — A B18C in 750kg of Car

Lift the bonnet and the calm, restrained exterior disappears entirely. It looks like a game of Tetris — a dense, precisely arranged puzzle of performance components crammed into a space that was never designed for any of them.

"We had to rebuild the entire engine bay to fit everything I wanted. Down here, nothing is original."

The heart of it is a B18C from a 1998 Honda Integra — a naturally aspirated four-cylinder that punches well above its displacement in standard form, and considerably harder once Juan's team finished with it. The engine bay was stripped, rebuilt, and welded back together around the requirements of the build rather than the other way around.

A good friend fabricated a completely new radiator and a 2.5-inch stainless exhaust system. The air intake has been shortened. Fuel delivery is handled by Fuel Injector Clinic 440cc injectors fed by a Bosch 255 fuel pump capable of supporting up to 1,000hp — significant overkill for 216hp, but that's the point. At the back of the bay sits a large Edelbrock Meatloaf intake manifold. Engine management runs through an AEM Wireworx harness, and BC Racing coilovers, along with custom traction bars and radius bars, keep everything planted.

"There are 216 horsepower at the wheels with this setup — and keep in mind, the car only weighs around 750 kilos."

"I have an extremely hard time getting all that power down to the ground without the front wheels spinning — all the way up to third gear."

216 horsepower. 750 kilograms. Do the maths.

On the Highway

A few minutes after Juan says that, we're sitting in the Civic on the on-ramp to the highway, a long straight stretch ahead of us, nobody else in sight. Out of the corner of my eye I see Juan tighten his grip on the wheel. Half a second later, my back is pressed into the seat.

The engine roars. The whole car pulls hard to the left as Juan revs it out, kicks the competition clutch, and bangs through the OEM GSR gearbox into third. Highway speed arrives in a matter of seconds. He stays on the throttle. The car pulls left again — he shouts over the engine noise that it's because the left driveshaft is shorter than the right.

It's impossible to hold a conversation over the roar. So I sit back, smile, and take in 216 wild horsepower being unleashed through a car that, to anyone watching from the outside, looks like it belongs in a museum.

This is what Juan has spent twenty years building towards.

Spec Sheet

Engine & Drivetrain

• B18C engine — sourced from 1998 Honda Integra
• OEM GSR gearbox
• Competition clutch
• Custom 2.5-inch stainless exhaust — handbuilt
• Custom new radiator — handbuilt
• Shortened air intake
• Edelbrock Meatloaf intake manifold
• AEM Wireworx engine management harness
• Fuel Injector Clinic 440cc injectors
• Bosch 255 fuel pump (1,000hp capable)
• Type-R oil pump
• 216hp at the wheels

Suspension & Chassis

• BC Racing coilovers
• Custom fabricated traction bars
• Custom fabricated radius bars

Exterior

• Lexus grey paint
• 1975 Honda Civic bumper — cut and reshaped front and rear
• Front fenders widened 1.5 inches
• Rear fenders widened 3 inches
• Custom wheels — designed by Juan Salguero

Interior

• Full cabin rebuild — original factory appearance
• Terminator-style gear lever

Perfect — And Hard to Argue With

Back in the garage, it's hard not to be impressed by a car that looks 95% original and is 100% modified beneath the surface. Every decision, every hour, every fabricated part has been in service of one clear vision — a 1978 Honda Civic CVCC that respects where it came from while quietly being capable of embarrassing cars worth ten times what it cost to build.

Juan calls it perfect. Standing there in the Long Beach evening, having just been pressed into a seat by 216 horsepower in a car that weighs less than most modern hot hatches, it's hard to find an argument.

The 1978 Honda Civic CVCC has been with him since he was sixteen. It came from someone who drove it five miles a day for twenty years. And now it's one of the most thoughtfully built sleepers in Los Angeles.

Some cars find the right owner. This one clearly did.

This feature is based on original reporting and photography by Peter Edenberg, first published at Fascinating Cars. Reproduced here with reference and acknowledgement to the original source and author.

Enjoy sleeper builds? You might want to check out some of our other featured cars over at Stance Auto Magazine.