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2024 Acura Integra Type S Road Test: Just our Type

It’s so often the case that a truly special driverÂ’s car reveals itself within the first couple hundred feet behind the wheel. The 2024 Acura Integra Type S is one of those cars. In fact, the Integra Type S doesnÂ’t even need that amount of road to show itself, because so much of what makes this car magical to drive can be felt standing still in the driveway. The fizz starts when you push the well-weighted clutch in, then hear the buzzy and vibrating 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder spring to life. It sends vibrations through the car and straight into your body thanks to the purposefully lacking balance shafts. Little turbocharged motors are typically lacking in character, but the Integra Type SÂ’ engine feels like itÂ’s alive and bumbling with energy at idle. Before you even start to find revs, this engine presents as one designed for performance. Take a spin through the six-speed manual transmission while stationary, and it quickly becomes obvious why Honda is the standard when it comes to manual transmissions. ItÂ’s a combination of the natural fluidity moving through the pattern – going both up and down, each gear seemingly selects itself as your wrist guides the stubby shifter along – and the mechanical click-clack connection you feel through your hand with each shift. The sheer amount of satisfaction it brings to make every last gear change is enough to make any manual enthusiast giddy. I ease off the clutch for the first time, and start to roll those thick 265-section-width tires forward, quickly revealing the perfectly weighted steering rack, clueing me in on how serious this chassis is. The view forward is spectacular past the thin A-pillars. The exhaust goes bang, ratta-tat-tat on the overrun as I ease up to the first stop sign. And the brakes only require a gentle whisper to the mega-responsive pedal to bring this hatchback to a stop. It only takes that couple hundred-foot stretch to realize that this Type S is exactly what I know it to be: a Honda Civic Type R in a different outfit. The comparison is impossible to avoid, and the Honda community may spend the next 50 years debating which one is better – trust me, there will never be a clear-cut answer – but itÂ’s undeniably great that we all get to choose between these two similar driving beasts.

Acura ILX headed for Civic-like early upgrades

The not-yet-ready-for-primetime 2012 Honda Civic saw it quickly returned to sender for refurbishment, now the Acura ILX is headed in the same direction in its very first year. Automotive News reports that the small, Civic-based sedan from Honda's luxury brand isn't meeting sales expectations, with an annualized rate of 22,000 to 24,000 sales instead of the 30,000 the company is after. More telling is that the ILX "is being outsold by the Buick Verano, Volkswagen CC and Audi A4," and, except for two months since it launched, it has also been outdone by the Acura TSX it is meant to replace.
Part of the cause has been the 2.0-liter, four-cylinder engine: its 150 horsepower to motivate a sedan that can weigh up to 2,970 pounds doesn't offer the kind of performance or value experience that buyers in the segment respond to. Another big issue is that the top-level 2.4-liter engine is only offered with a six-speed manual even though most buyers of the highest trim don't really want to shift their own gears. Lastly, the ILX might not put enough space between it and its frugal underpinnings - our first drive review pegged it as "the world's nicest Honda Civic."
An automatic transmission is on the way for the 2.4-liter, but it isn't clear when. And while Honda admits that the 2.0-liter is underpowered and Automotive News says it's on the way out, the company hasn't yet said how that situation will be corrected.

Honda CEO says we shouldn't expect any new sports cars

It wasn't so long ago that Honda was known for its sporty two-door models, with models ranging from the Civic del Sol to the Prelude and from the Acura Integra and RSX to the Honda S2000. But look at its range today and all you'll see are the Civic and Accord coupes. Honda has essentially let competitors like the Scion FR-S/Subaru BRZ and Nissan 370Z take the place it once claimed as its own. But if you were hoping Honda would fight back with a new coupe or convertible of its own, we're afraid you're going to have to downgrade those hopes to pipe dreams.
While in Japan ahead of the Tokyo Motor Show, Autoblog had a chance to sit down with American Honda CEO Tetsuo Iwamura (pictured at right). When we asked about the potential for a new sports coupe or convertible in the Honda or Acura lineup, he pointed to the current Civic and Accord coupes - not to mention the upcoming new NSX - but said that Honda has no replacement for any of the aforementioned models (or a rival for the FR-S or 370Z) in the pipeline, saying only that the company is monitoring potential demand.
What Iwamura-san did note was that he's a personal fan of the new S660 roadster (pictured above) set to be unveiled tomorrow, and he is pushing (or at least hoping) that it will come to North America. Given that he's head of both Honda's American office and its global automobile operations, one might think that the only person he would have to persuade is himself (well... himself, and potential buyers), but the sporty droptop looks to be about kei-sized, which sadly suggests that it may be too small for American tastes and perhaps not designed with US crash-test standards in mind anyway.