GTP Cool Wall: 2002 Honda Integra Type-R. Voting Closed

[LSX]

210Hp RSX-S VS 220 Hp Integra Type-R would come down to just the driver, it's the same K20 engine right? If the Type-R has 240 then I would say yeah, that is a fair difference in power. Why do we get neutered versions of cars? I don't understand? Do other countrys get neutered versions of our American cars? If not, I'm effin pizzed.

 

[niky]

The Type-R is some two hundred pounds lighter. And likely has a stiffer suspension. (Japanese market performance cars, sans the Miata, always ride like rocks... )

 

[LSX]

What do they dispose of to gain that though? The leather seats? Crazyness!

 

[niky]

I'd wager that the extra sound insulation on the US market Acura would be worth a fair portion of that bulk.

 

[Crashbroke23]

Uncool for the same reason that the Focus RS isn't cool, its a car for ASBO's. If you want a cool Type R, get the civic. On and Kristin Scott Thomas would never go in it if you were to take her somewhere.

 

[Giancarlo]

I'd wager that the extra sound insulation on the US market Acura would be worth a fair portion of that bulk.

Actually the RSX has pretty poor sound insulation.

 

[LSX]

Well I notice in the picture that Teg-R has racing seats. (Looks like it anyways.) The RSX-S I was in has full leather seats, looked nothing like those. Maybe between those and do the Japanese cars have a spare tire? Maybe the weight came from that stuff? It was however quiet, before intake/headers/exhaust and ECU were installed, then it was horrid.

 

[Leonidae]

You have to remember, that Acura makes luxury/comfortable Hondas.. so yeah, there's leather seats, better sound systems, air con, sound insulation, softer bushings to quiet down tire noise etc etc.. so called granny spec cars.

 

[niky]

Uncool for the same reason that the Focus RS isn't cool, its a car for ASBO's. If you want a cool Type R, get the civic. On and Kristin Scott Thomas would never go in it if you were to take her somewhere.

Given that Kristin Scott Thomas doesn't agree with Clarkson about what defines a cool car even if he invokes coolness in her name, any comment made in reference to her is null and void.

And I don't buy sportscars to impress older women. I buy them for myself, thank you.

And the only car that doesn't encourage hoonery, and would thus be on the cool wall by this metric, would be an automatic Toyota Corolla.

 

[homeforsummer]

Agreed. I'm glad they called it the RSX here in North America because it will never live up to the Integra name.

I find this comment confusing, given that the DC5 is an absolutely brilliant FWD performance car. Of course it lives up to the Integra name. Perhaps the RSX itself doesn't if it's a little softer, but then there were softer versions of the DC2 which were still called Integras so this doesn't make any sense either.

Actually the RSX has pretty poor sound insulation.

Doesn't mean there isn't still a lot of it to remove - they just might not have spent too long on the NVH process.

AFAIK, the weight reduction comes from less sound insulation, lighter wheels, lighter flywheel, lighter forged wishbones, a more basic specification (aircon alone adds 10kg apparently), and if it's anything like the DC2, they make the windscreen glass thinner too.

 

[Thatman]

uncool I like the old one better. Based my decision on looks And I may have given it a cool if it had a body-kit on it.....

 

[Rotary Junkie]

I like the old one better but the DC5 is still cool

 

[Thatman]

I also think they look better in person.

 

[benzoboy]

Uncool

Solid chassis, excellent driving dynamics, not bad on price either. But, these people buy them:

Sorry but that argument's ridiculous, no 'chav' or 'ASBO' can afford a DC5 Integra Type-R, in fact, DC2 ITR's barely fall into what would be an affordable budget for someone of that nature, and then they have to insure them, which, especially in the UK, is what stings a lot of drivers. An Integra Type-R would be nigh-on impossible to insure for someone of that age.

 

[Paulie]

I shall abstain from voting, I'll be sitting on the fence between cool and uncool.

 

[TheCracker]

Barely cool. Great car, although not as good as the previous DC2, but generally owned by knobs. We only ever got Type-R Integras here, so they are not tainted by look alikes but still loved by the chav element of society.

 

[SRV2LOW4ME]

I find this comment confusing, given that the DC5 is an absolutely brilliant FWD performance car. Of course it lives up to the Integra name. Perhaps the RSX itself doesn't if it's a little softer, but then there were softer versions of the DC2 which were still called Integras so this doesn't make any sense either.

I'm mostly talking about looks. RSX has nothing on the Integra in styling, and why they took it so far away from its styling cues (much like they did for the 4th gen Prelude and failed in sales) i'll never know...

 

[-ultraflow-]

cool

 

[homeforsummer]

I'm mostly talking about looks. RSX has nothing on the Integra in styling, and why they took it so far away from its styling cues (much like they did for the 4th gen Prelude and failed in sales) i'll never know...

You think? Personally I find the DC5 much more pleasing on the eye (has all the purpose of the earlier models but a sharper style), and that's considering I do really like the look of the DC2 as well. The non-Type R DC2 was essentially a pretty dull-looking car, especially before they gave it quad headlamps:

I mean, it's not bad, but it's not a stunner. I think the standard RSX is a much nicer looking car:

And of course, the Type R variants of all of them look pretty damn good...

 

[Bones Brigade]

Seriously uncool.

seriously uncool.

Seriously uncool.

Who else said seriously uncool? I'm trying to find everyone who is actually right in this matter.

When has anyone ever seen someone driving an RSX or Integra and they thought that the person driving was cool? When? I personally think the car is pretty cool but I'm a douche bag. I'm also "around 20." If you were a real estate agent and drove up in one of these your clients would walk. Or if you were a business owner and came up in one, they'd think you were the mail boy.

 

[homeforsummer]

When has anyone ever seen someone driving an RSX or Integra and they thought that the person driving was cool? When? I personally think the car is pretty cool but I'm a douche bag. I'm also "around 20." If you were a real estate agent and drove up in one of these your clients would walk. Or if you were a business owner and came up in one, they'd think you were the mail boy.

Although it's hard to separate a car from it's owners, this is what we're ideally trying to do when voting a car cool or uncool. You said yourself - you think the car is pretty cool, so this should be the vote you'd chosen.

We're lucky in the UK that there aren't many DC5s about as they were never officially imported so there's no bad rep around the car (even if the DC2 does have a little bad rep thanks to the people that generally drive it) so owner influence doesn't affect my decision at all and I see the car for what it is.

That said, as you don't get the actual Type R DC5 over there in the States, I can't see how that model in particular has bad rep, even if the Acura RSX does. I'd expect anyone serious enough to import a Type R from Japan to the States is probably pretty serious about their driving and not just a ricer...

As for pulling up to an important meeting or similar in the car... well, I can see how one in champ white with white wheels might look a bit OTT, but I think in the blue the car is also available in (or indeed the black, both shown below) it's fairly good looking and not too "showy". As long as you pulled up not revving the nuts off it it'd just look like any other smart coupe. Especially if you took it upon yourself to remove the wing.

 

[Giancarlo]

I much prefer the mini-spoiler myself.

 

[niky]

As for pulling up to an important meeting or similar in the car... well, I can see how one in champ white with white wheels might look a bit OTT, but I think in the blue the car is also available in (or indeed the black, both shown below) it's fairly good looking and not too "showy". As long as you pulled up not revving the nuts off it it'd just look like any other smart coupe. Especially if you took it upon yourself to remove the wing.

I'm still trying to figure out what owners have to do with it, at all.

If I see someone pull up to a meeting in a Porsche, I'd think he was a showy cockerel with more money than brains... I'd imagine him to be a balding, gold-chain wearing dip with his shirt open one two buttons down.

Yet I still voted the GT2 sub-zero... because the GT2 and GT3 are the Porsches for guys who don't give a crap about going to meetings looking good. They'll put up with the noisy engine, stiff ride and uncompromising nature of such cars just to go fast.

That's why the GT2 is subzero. And that's why the Type R is subzero. You can buy a base Integra to show off... but you buy the hard riding, noisy and high strung Type R specifically to go fast.

Wait... the old Type R was subzero... this one isn't as iconic or as good, but it's still a great performer, so it still gets a "cool".

 

[Slicks]

Cool, barely. The original ITR registers as subzero, despite the average owner. This one can't reach that level of chill.

Ditto, but uncool and cool respectively.

 

[YSSMAN]

I think you guys are missing the point - Since when have there been logical reasons for Hammond and Clarkson to classify a car as any of the four categories? Owners of the respective models are just as much of a reason to place a car anywhere as are other "factual" data.

Sure, I respect the DC5. But that doesn't mean its "cool" by any means.

 

[homeforsummer]

I do think it's cool though. You can't remove objectivity from it completely otherwise it wouldn't be a car. It's ridiculous to suggest that performance, looks, heritage, ethos etc aren't part of it because they are.

 

[bicycleshorts]

I much prefer the mini-spoiler myself.

That's the first time I've seen one of these without the stock rear wing and, imo, it makes it a much more desirable car.

Were I to buy one, I would certainly consider taking it off (along with all the Type R badges) and turn it into a sleeper car.

Stock: It's uncool. Why? As a 21 year old, I know exactly what kind of image I would paint if I showed up to a date in it.

Sleepered: I can't imagine anyone who wouldn't like it. You could show up to a meeting or date in it (perhaps even in white!) but petrol heads would still be able to pick it out through the red H badge. Especially since the "schizo" high-revving engine allows you to drive conservatively if you don't want to rag it.

Either way; I would certainly take one over a Civic Type R even though I would most certainly look uncool driving it

 

[mafia_boy]

I think you guys are missing the point - Since when have there been logical reasons for Hammond and Clarkson to classify a car as any of the four categories? Owners of the respective models are just as much of a reason to place a car anywhere as are other "factual" data.

Sure, I respect the DC5. But that doesn't mean its "cool" by any means.

Exactly. That's why I voted uncool too. It's not the car, it's the drivers. It's similar with my Viper voting, it's seriously uncool like an Enzo would be in TG's cool wall because there simply was not enough to go around here.

 

[Eric.]

Well, considering its not like you just drive over to your local Honda dealer to get one here, the usual 18 year old douchebags who worship FnF and such **** aren't driving them. In fact the only one that I know of in my area is owned by the Honda dealership's son. He also owns a last-gen turbo Prelude.

If we're going to class everything by who drives it, every Honda minus the NSX should be seriously uncool because dirt poor sixteen year olds can afford a 1988 Civic that's falling apart.

So, subzero for me. And a nice reminder of why I quit going in these threads.

 

[bicycleshorts]

If we're going to class everything by who drives it, every Honda minus the NSX should be seriously uncool because dirt poor sixteen year olds can afford a 1988 Civic that's falling apart.

In Top Gear, the cool wall is based on how you would look driving one (most of the time). Not how technically advanced the car is, how it drives or anything else like that.

I'm assuming this thread is based on the same wall in the show so it makes sense to consider who would drive it.

It's easy for a car to be cool because you'll get a nod from any petrol head from driving it, it's harder to get a car which average joe will still like.

A good example would be a Fiat 500 - a small car with a small engine (ignoring the Arbarth for now); but pretty much everyone loves it. An Integra (especially with that rear wing) however; will just make you look like another boy racer who frequents Halfords 3 times a day to 95% of the population.