For Me, Acura’s Integra Type S Makes the Case for Embracing Evolution

There’s a reason we come to label certain cars as heroes. They’re the ones that stop us in our tracks at first sight or fill us with emotion behind the wheel. Acura’s Integra Type-R, as my colleague Greg Ingold recently got to discover firsthand, is one such car. But sometimes a nameplate evolves into something different, perhaps softer or less edgy, that truly matches an individual’s tastes. The Acura Integra Type S has become that car for me.

In 1997, Acura’s Integra Type-R (ITR) laid down a motorsport-inspired marker in a crowded sport compact segment. Raw and razor-sharp, the Type-R helped solidify the still-emerging brand’s cred among younger buyers as a purveyor of engaging, capable sports cars (which it would squander after the death of the RSX, but I digress). At around $24K then, the Type-R wasn’t cheap—it’d be about $47,000 today—but as a limited-run aspirational car, it could afford to push handling and cost envelopes in order to appeal to a more focused audience.

The Integra Type S (ITS) exists in a much different world. The ’90s market, during which every automaker had at least a few sporty options, is long gone. Except for the Miata and the Toyobaru twins, the cars that remain—namely the VW GTI, Subaru WRX, Hyundai Elantra N, and Honda’s spicy hatches (which are now really five-door sedans)—continue to exist because they accommodate buyers’ other interests and needs beyond driving excitement.

As such, in setting out to reclaim some of this territory, Acura didn’t feel the need to follow its hardcore path from the 1990s. (Of course, there’s also a Type R on the same platform at the Honda dealer next door.) Honda’s near-luxury brand could afford to send the ITS to finishing school for a product consistent with its more upscale positioning.

After more than a decade of automatic-equipped wagons used as daily drivers while keeping my “fun” cars for special trips, track use, and summer evening blasts, it was time to insert some joy back into my day-to-day driving. The 2024 Platinum White Pearl Type S you see here is mine, and I recently drove it back-to-back with its predecessor. But first, a bit of backstory.

I’d seen the Type S in person, still in camouflage, when walking the manufacturers’ row at the 24 Hours of Daytona in 2023 and developed a bit of a crush. Just the same, I took time to weigh my options, and last fall, I hunkered down to do what I do best: research cars on the internet. These were the parameters:

• Practical enough to swallow my bike without fuss, preferably without taking it apart
• Carry four people in reasonable comfort
• Be new or close to it; there are too many projects in my barn
• Be engaging at four-to-eight tenths; I have other toys for pushing the envelope
• Manual transmission

Those bullets could have been covered in varying degrees by a range of cars in years gone by—3 Series wagons, 5 Series wagons, sundry Subarus, the Mazdaspeed 3, the Volvo V70R, the Ford Focus ST and RS, and others. In today’s market, though, my options were considerably fewer.

After reading everything I could get my hands on and talking with colleagues who’d been behind the wheel of the A-Spec and Type S Integras, along with the Civic Type R, I took the Type S for a test drive and made up my mind. I found a dealer that doesn’t mark up these cars—in Erie, Pennsylvania, not all that far from where I live—placed an order to get the spec I wanted, and took delivery this past March.

It was all I could do to patiently drive through the break-in miles, but once they were complete, I headed up to Michigan to meet Hagerty member Chris Berchin and his ’97 Integra Type-R. Our primary objective was Greg Ingold’s story about Berchin’s Type-R, but as a newcomer to Honda/Acura products, I wanted to get a sense of whether the two cars shared a connection—and stretch the ITS’ legs in earnest.

The trip from Ohio yielded 30 mpg, and for someone whose last daily driver was made in 2001, the adaptive cruise and heads-up display were welcome additions. The long-for-a-compact-car 107.7-inch wheelbase and dampers on their softest setting made for a relaxed, composed turnpike trip.

Road noise can be a little much—good thing for the superb ELS stereo. I’ve got some spare Dynamat lying around from another project that I may apply to the inner fenders this winter. That aside, ITS does normal car quite well, striking a healthy balance between comfort and precision.

Early reviews criticized the seats, often contrasting them with the excellent and heavily bolstered thrones in the sibling Civic Type R. This isn’t off the mark. To put a finer point on it, the touch-too-firm seats seem to be made for the pear-shaped among us—lateral bolstering is reasonable, if unremarkable in this world of Recaro everything—but the seat bottoms are pretty flat and there’s little lateral support for your legs. Still, they’re comfortable for my finicky back over long distances, and that clears the bar for me.

Even before pushing the car, I’d seen hints of how engaging the ITS could be—you don’t need to wring this car’s neck to extract its personality. Once we got going on some winding roads outside of Ann Arbor, though, my Integra revealed Acura’s modern, broad-range take on performance.

Two-liter turbocharged engines aren’t generally known for their eagerness to wind through the rev range, but the ITS’ is about as linear in delivery as a turbo engine can be, and shows no signs of letting up by its 7000-rpm redline. Even Berchin, who’s used to his 8400-rpm screamer of a motor, noted how well the ITS’ engine breathes, and how characteristically Honda-four it feels, though with a healthy dollop of torque, too.

Hustle the ITS through a series of corners and you’ll quickly discover that composure is its calling card. As with the ITR, every component works toward the inherent balance of the car, even if the personalities of the two are night-and-day different.

That long wheelbase—the one that makes the car feel so relaxed on trips and lets me fit my bike out back without taking the front wheel off—lends the confidence of stability through transitions and dips at speed. The natural trade-off is that the car isn’t as eager to pivot as the much-shorter-wheelbase ITR, though in most instances you can fix that with some properly timed braking.

The ITS’ steering feel isn’t up to the granular levels of its predecessor, but the modern electronic power steering still communicates beautifully—even as the limited-slip begins to distribute grip to both front wheels. The engine’s torque will happily pull you through a bend if you stay one gear higher than you need, calmly carrying ample pace.

Not that I’d encourage leaving it in any one gear for long—you’ll make excuses to row the ITS’ shifter. Gotta come to a stop? Time to heel-toe four-three-two-one. Tackling that series of esses? Surely there’s an upshift and a downshift somewhere in there. This might be the best shifter of the few remaining on the market—the Dark Horse Mustang’s Tremec is up there, but part of its allure is the Coyote V-8’s sound that comes with it. The ITS’ shifter is a star all its own—the action, weight, and throw are reminiscent of the S2000’s revered mechanism.

You can leave the adjustable dampers in the softest setting for all but the most aggressive driving. The car is superbly controlled, and I’ve yet to feel it get truly unsettled. I might like a little more sidewall and am thinking about going to 18-inch wheels, both for potholes and to introduce a little more progressive breakaway from the tires (coming from the guy who says he doesn’t need to push the envelope in this car).

Pulling off at a park to take pictures before we wrapped our day, I took stock of the drive. Time behind the wheel of both cars showcased two different eras, each with its distinctive character. As different as the mission briefs are for the ITR and the ITS, the connection between these two generations isn’t overt—time and the enthusiast market’s changing demands made sure of that. But the two do share a brilliant sense of balance—no one element of either car is out of proportion from the rest. They’re also right on the mark as identity-building cars for Acura in their respective eras. More importantly than comparing these two, though, I confirmed I’d found a car that fit me.

A lot has changed since the 1990s. I might still wear flannels and occasionally listen to Pearl Jam, but I’ve got more mileage on me and I approach cars from a much different, often more pragmatic perspective than I did then. Likewise, Acura’s take on the sporty segment with the Integra Type S is a good bit more measured than its approach to the Type-R all those years ago, and, at least for a 40-something enthusiast like me, that’s a good thing.