Acura is on something of a roll this year, launching headfirst back into its performance heritage with a duo of Type S models—first the TLX sedan, now the NSX supercar—but it saved its biggest announcement for late on Thursday night. The iconic Acura Integra is coming back, folks. For real.
Lest you think we’re joking, the photo above and below is an official teaser image of the car’s headlight that Acura published in tandem with the surprise news, which came straight from Acura boss Jon Ikeda at the NSX Type S reveal event with frustratingly few details. The INTEGRA badge inlaid on the bumper below the light will look familiar to anyone who was alive when the OG Integra prowled the streets and helped redefine compact front-wheel-drive fun from for two decades in the 80s and 90s.
“It’s back, and it’ll be on sale next year,” an Acura spokesman said. Hot damn.
The world has certainly been a little dimmer since the Integra went out of production in 2006, or 2001 if you’re in America. (Does the replacement RSX count? Great car, but if it’s not called an Integra, I mean, it’s not an Integra.) Either way, it’s almost impossible to top the third-generation model, a FWD touchstone that cemented Acura’s image of smart, sensible performance and provided a popular canvas for the import tuner scene in the late 1990s.
Not counting the NSX, which exists in a league of its own in Acura’s lineup, Acura hasn’t made a two-door sports car since the RSX/Integra bowed out. It spent much of the last 15 years off in the wilderness, trying to find itself after losing much of the identity it established in the 1990s amid a sea of uninspiring cars with alphabet soup names and so-so performance. The Integra will be the first Acura with a real name in 20 years—but a more significant callback is that the Integra was one of just two models that the brand launched in its first year of existence back in 1986.
There is a clear effort to return to its roots here, and to hear Acura tell it, that bumper badge in the teaser is just the tip of the fan service iceberg. We expect to see this riding on the new Civic platform—itself a great base—and it wouldn’t be shocked to see a manual transmission on tap. Honda’s certainly got the goods to make it happen with the new Civic retaining a manual in Si and Type R forms, and Ikeda promised the new Integra will have the “same fun-to-drive spirit” as its ancestors. A slick stick shift is certainly part of that good time.
“The first car I learned to drive stick on was a 1998 Integra GS-R,” Integra product planner Jonathon Rivers told The Drive. “We’re super excited to bring it back, and 2022 is gonna be an amazing year. You’re gonna hear more about it over the next several months.”
While there’s approximately zero additional information available at this time, we do have at least some idea of how the new Integra will look. Back in February, photos of a strange-looking two-door test mule spread around social media with some claiming it to be an Integra in disguise. Acura denied it at the time and said the pictures had been photoshopped, but you know, now we’re not quite as sure.
Whatever the case, we will have answers soon. And a new Integra! What a world.
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