CUSTOMER SPOTLIGHT: REED WOODRING, SUFFIELD, OH
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Reed Woodring’s show-winning fifth-generation Honda Prelude was saved from the brink of extinction.
“I bought it totaled with the quarter panel smashed in, and some subframe damage,” Woodring said. “It was a salvage title headed to the scrapper.”
Woodring banked on his dad’s 35 years of body shop experience, bought the car and got it home. After some bodywork, they threw in an engine and transmission and got the car on the road — still in need of suspension work and without an interior. Slowly, the car came together with a lowering kit and new wheels.
“Right before H-Day, I put an H23 engine in it out of an Accord over in Europe,” Woodring said. “Got the trans rebuilt the Thursday before H-Day. Made it all the way down there, and the trans blew up on me. I met a guy with 15 Preludes in his backyard, took a trans out of a car, replaced it overnight, and made it to day two of the show. This year, I just got my sixth trophy.”
Prelude purists immediately notice the car’s Mugen side skirts. What can’t be seen: underbracing, upgraded swaybars and polyurethane mounts that help the car tackle autocross racing.
“I got a lot of the interior parts from Pull-A-Part,” Woodring said. “Dash pieces that were missing. The glovebox. Little stuff. Parts for this car are rare to find. They all got scrapped, nobody’s really making a lot of new parts. Finding a whole poly mount master bushing set is pretty rare. When I was putting my car back together, it was hard to find OEM struts.”
Though OEM parts for modern classics like the Honda Prelude can be tough to track down, Pull-A-Part’s Notify Me system can send an email or text message as soon as a desired vehicle comes in stock. Pull-A-Part’s advanced online inventory search can help identify if a specific vehicle is in inventory before driving to the yard — a feature that Woodring said distinguishes Pull-A-Part from a run-of-the-mill junkyard.
“It’s easy to get to Pull-A-Part — they’re everywhere,” Woodring said. “Junkyards don’t have websites like you guys have set up, where you can see if you can see if there’s a car there, so you don’t go out wasting your time seeing if there’s one there.”
Today, Woodring continues to make small improvements to his Prelude as the opportunities come. The car has become a conduit to connections beyond the Honda fandom.
“I’m part of a club called NVüS,” Woodring said. “It’s a worldwide club. It’s like my second family. The whole car club is something the car scene’s never seen before. That entire club is based on a family aspect. Everybody is a brother. Everybody is a sister. We just did our charity event and raised over $3000 for a charity — and they matched our donation.”
Before the Prelude, Woodring owned a 1999 Jeep Cherokee XJ with only 115,000 miles on the clock. Low-mileage Cherokees in good condition are a rarity in their own right — but even though Woodring calls it the favorite car he’s ever owned, it had to go away so that the Prelude could come to glory.
“It was the most reliable vehicle I’ve ever had,” Woodring said. “I sold it like an idiot. I was so upset. I regret it now, selling it for what I did with the low miles it had on it. But I needed to finish my Prelude.”
