WOULD THE REAL INTEGRA PLEASE STEP FORWARD?

A comparison between a 2001 Type R and the all-new Type S reveals much about motoring, then and now.

- A.J. BAIME

The most moronic thing I’ve ever done in a car was in an Acura Integra. My best friend had a circa-1988 first-gen, and we had just gotten our driver’s licenses. Acura had launched in the U.S. two years earlier, and the Integra was one of two original models. We loaded the cargo hold with cases of Miller and road-tripped on icy highways through New Hampshire, every gauge pinned. At one point, he locked in with a guy in a gold Saab, who passed us at over 100 mph on a highway shoulder. Kids die every day doing this shit. One reason we survived was because that Integra was so sure-footed.

Jump to June 2023, and I’m in an Integra for the first time since. My assignment: compare the all-new, tech-forward, 320-hp turbocharged Integra Type S and the legendary VTEC-junkie, 195-hp 2001 Type R. That’s the ITR, and, to those with discernment and experience, the best-handling front-driver ever mass-produced. Honda/ Acura at its current best versus peak Honda. No winner or loser, but an illumination of how driving expectations and standards have changed.

The day began in the old Type R, on roads curling through hills outside Ojai, California. The car had just rolled off the floor of Honda’s Southern California museum, the American Honda Collection Hall. Acura sold less than half as many ITRs in the U.S. as it did first-gen NSXs, and this one had barely over 6000 miles on it. It’s pretty much worth more than my life.