THERE was no overall Best of Show award at this year’s Heelz and Wheelz car competition held at the National Arena parking lot on March 2.

However, the two most hotly contested groups, Best Toyota and Best Honda, saw winners with mirror strategies.

Taking the best Honda Trophy was the 1989 Honda Civic of Vaughn Watson. His victory was made even better by the number of high-quality entries that he beat out.

“This is a long time coming. The Civic has come a long way,” Watson told Auto.

Doing all the work himself, Watson dug deep into the Honda OEM parts bin for the major upgrade that caught the eyes of the judges; the complete running gear from one of Honda’s best — the revered first generation Civic Type R. Commonly referred to as the EK9 CTR, it was built from 1997 to 2000, briefly holding the record as the car with the highest horsepower output per litre. The 1.6-litre motor producing an amazing 185bhp was sourced and fitted by Watson, including the short-ratio gearbox complete with factory limited-slip differential.

“It’s fast enough to win the 14-second class drag racing, but still can easily be driven daily,” said Watson.

Over the 12 years of ownership, he also added the Civic Type R’s signature red Recaro bucket seats, green Takata seat belts, and a Momo steering wheel. Suspension is modified with Megan Racing coil-overs. The parts themselves were only icing on a cake of the painstaking restoration, as the Civic looked factory fresh with flawless paint and all appropriate decals.

Nigel Reynolds, winner of the best Toyota, went the opposite direction of Watson by putting an older engine in his newer car, a Toyota 3S-GTE into his formerly Z-series-powered 2002 Toyota Celica. The 3S and Celica last came together from the factory in 1999. The execution of installing the turbocharged 2-litre 3S and transmission into the current Celica chassis was of OEM quality.

“I’m very happy to have won,” said Reynolds.

The rest of his modifications were converting the top-mounted intercooler to that of being front-mounted, and a boost controller for some extra speed. The old 3S-GTE Celica had four-wheel drive, so the suspension for the front-wheel drive 2002 model had to be upgraded using TRD Sportivo-branded components.