Junkyard Gem: 2005 Honda Accord, Hello Kitty Edition

When you're a young city-dweller and your car is a generic 20-year-old sedan with the base engine, what do you do? You personalize it, of course, and that's what the final owner of this Accord LX did. An unfortunate rear-end collision sent this car to a Denver car graveyard, giving us an illustrative snapshot of a place and time in popular automotive culture.

This car began life as one of the more than 350,000 Honda Accords sold in the United States for the 2005 model year. It's a dime-a-dozen mid-level DX four-door with the base 2.4-liter four-cylinder engine delivering 160 horsepower.

It has air conditioning, a CD player with AUX input jack (a fairly rare feature in cars built before the late 2000s), an automatic transmission and a large helping of that legendary Accord reliability.

All in all, a very sensible car. But where's the fun?

So, a shopping spree including pink spray paint, aftermarket accessories and many decals followed.

A not-so-fast but reasonably furious wing was bolted to the decklid.

When you're a member of the Slow Car Club, you can be proud that your Accord doesn't have the 255-horse V6 under its hood.

Inside, all the seats feature Hello Kitty seat covers.

Because genuine Hello Kitty wheels are very expensive, this car has regular 15-inch steelies painted pink.

Because all is not sweetness and cuddles in the Hello Kitty universe, there are spike lug nuts.

But did you die?

Break parts, not hearts.

One might apply this sentiment to the driver who crashed into this Accord and sent it to the junkyard.

It's worth fixing a three-year-old Accord when this happens, but not so much with a 19-year-old Accord.

When you own a McMansion like this one, you require the low depreciation of the 2005 Accord LX.