I recently wrote that many of the most fuel-efficient cars ever sold are surprisingly old. The engineers behind the Geo Metro, Honda Insight, and early Prius understood something we seem to have forgotten. Building tiny cars is a cheat code for fuel efficiency. But no tiny car carries as much raw coolness as the rad-fabulous Honda CRX.

Rumor has it the CRX nameplate stood for Civic Renaissance eXperimental. The CRX was certainly an experiment in the North American market. In some regions, Honda sold it as a 2+2. In the U.S., it came exclusively as a two-seater.

The 1.5-liter inline-four, especially with a manual transmission, delivered impressive efficiency. The true fuel-economy champion was the CRX HF, or “High Fuel.” The HF earned an official EPA rating of 51 mpg city and 67 mpg highway. Updated EPA testing methods revise that to 42 city and 51 highway. Owners still report that 50 mpg on the highway is achievable.

A tiny hatchback sparks a bidding war

A regular-trim 1986 Honda CRX, pictured, recently went up for sale on Cars & Bids. The auction shows how much presence these cars still have. The kammback coupe remains striking. The red paint pops. The 13-inch wheels with retro aero hubcaps complete the look.

Early bids trickled in at $2,986, $3,100, and $3,200. Then one bidder dropped the hammer with a $6,150 offer.

The jump stunned onlookers. One frustrated bidder wrote, “Really increased the bid by $2950, come on now. No reason for that.”

Even the vehicle’s owner expressed surprise. “Friday night, maybe a drink or 2 or a gummy. I just hope its legit. I think we all have done impulsive things. EIther way keep bidding.”

Finally, the bidder behind the jump weighed in.

“Hey my apologies if I deflated some of the fun in this. I had this exact car (make/model/color etc) given to me in high school in 1996, from my grandpa, it had 35K miles on it as he only worked 2 miles from the factory he worked at. I was young, stupid and didn’t appreciate it, wrecked it effing around in college like the ungrateful a*hole I was. so been periodically looking decades later and when I saw it quickly justified bidding that amt, naively thinking it’d keep me from having to pay too much attention as the end nears but that’s about as stupid impulsive logic as I had 30 yrs ago… realizing I’m going to have to babysit it but to anyone out there that lines these type of vehicles, just know you’re a cool person and your not alone….. even though your wives don’t understand, I do.”

Was this a one-off fluke or a sign of a shifting market? We may have to wait for the next collector-quality CRX to hit the auction block to find out.