2001 Acura Integra Type R vs. 2023 Honda Civic Type R: The Circle Is Complete
Twenty-six years later, the Civic Type R has finally learned all the Integra Type R's tricks.
It's the shifter. The visual connection is obvious - it's the same shift knob, and not by accident - but it goes deeper, all the way to transmission it actuates. More than any other single part, the shifter in the 2023 Honda Civic Type R is the most tangible physical and spiritual connection to the legendary Acura Integra Type R.
This generation Civic Type R shares more conceptually with the Integra Type R than any Honda or Acura-badged sports coupe or sedan in the preceding 26 years. The way it drives, the way it behaves when pushed to its limit, and the way it makes the driver feel all channel the Integra in ways no other car quite has.
Enough effusive ink has been poured out in tributes to the Integra Type R over the years you'd be forgiven for thinking this is just another work of Honda fanboy navel-gazing. As you can see from the photos, it's not. We're not looking back at the Integra with rose-colored glasses, we actually drove one. This immaculate 2001 Type R came straight out of Honda's own museum in Southern California, and we didn't just drive it around the photo location. Trust us, VTEC kicked in, yo.
Then: 2001 Acura Integra Type R
The rest of the car was equally focused.
The body and chassis had many of their seams welded up to stiffen the car, and when that wasn't enough, a strut tower brace was added under the hood and a similar piece of unpainted steel tubing was bolted to the back wall of the trunk. The suspension mounting points were likewise strengthened. Despite the additions, Honda engineers found 33 pounds of weight savings compared to the next-highest performance model.
It's evident the moment you release the clutch. There's an unmistakable lightness and delicacy to the Integra. It's a deceptively small car, just a foot and a half longer than a modern Miata and otherwise about the same size. Its seven-spoke wheels are just 15 inches in diameter, comically small by today's standard. Inside, the low beltline and dashboard give you both a commanding view of the road and the inescapable feeling you're wearing the car as much as you're sitting in it. You immediately feel every move the car makes, down to the smallest twitch. It creates an immediate connection with the driver and never lets go.
It's the controls that really grab you, though. The hydraulically assisted steering feels exactly as heavy as it ought to be in a car this light, no more, no less. It weights up proportionally to your input and never lessens or loses its road feel. The brake pedal responds immediately and telegraphs precisely how much stopping power you have left before lockup. Even the throttle pedal feels delightfully mechanical, the resistance of actual cables and springs coming through the sole of your shoe, not the simulated resistance of a modern electronic pedal.
It somehow makes that raucous spitfire of an engine feel even more alive. The more naturally aspirated engines we lose to the march of progress, the more we appreciate the emotional attachment they're capable of. The best of them, like this one, keep building and building both power and excitement as the revs climb. It's as if it'll never stop spinning faster, as if you'll never have to shift. It just keeps revving, and going faster and faster as it does. VTEC absolutely kicks in as you approach the business end of the tach and the little extra kick of power you get from it is addicting. Then you do it again, and again, and again as the impossibly short gears and narrow peak power band keep you working for the power and the speed.
The shifter. The machined aluminum center of the car. Spindly compared to a modern car, the cold (or scorching hot, depending on the ambient temperature) metal knob rocks easily forward and back between gears with a precision few modern manuals can match two and a half decades later. Even driven in anger, it needs only two, maybe three fingertips to find its way to the next gate. It's nearly impossible to miss a shift entirely and just as unlikely you'll struggle at all to place it exactly where you want.
On the street, the lightness, the crispness, the eagerness is palpable. Thanks to a nearly unprecedented track opportunity a few years ago, though, we can tell you what the Integra Type R is like driven like it was meant to be. It is, in a word, joyful. The little tires, burdened with surprisingly little weight, hang on tighter than you'd ever expect just looking at them. Push the fronts too hard and the steering lightens as understeer takes hold and you could correct it by backing off the throttle, but if you've timed it right, you can keep your foot in it and let the diff save the day.
That would be enough to make it an entertaining front-drive car, but the Integra has more to give. Throw too much weight on the nose as you fling it into a corner and the stiffened up rear end will start to come around on you like an old Porsche. Get it right and you'll point the car right down to the apex and even initiate a little four-wheel drift. Overdrive it, though, and the car will try to swap ends on you same as that Porsche if your hands aren't quick enough.
The challenge isn't in figuring out how this car wants to be driven. The Integra is so communicative all these tips and tricks are obvious from the first corner. The thrill is in honing your driving to extract every last measure of speed from this car. It'll tell you when it has more to give, when you're doing the right things, and when you're getting in over your head. All you have to do is react.
Now: 2023 Honda Civic Type R
The second-generation (in this market) Civic Type R represents everything Honda knows about making a street car fast and fun to drive. If you're wondering how a turbocharged family sedan could possibly channel light, lithe 2+2 sport coupe, or you're already writing us a strongly worded email about it, simmer down. It's understandable if you haven't driven an Integra Type R lately (unmolested examples are exceedingly rare these days) or a new Civic Type R at all (dealer markups are comically greedy right now), it sounds like a stretch. That's why we drove both of them back to back and have tracked both.
Being considerably larger in every dimension and fitted with an additional seat and two more doors (not to mention things like airbags), it's hardly a surprise the Civic is 605 pounds heavier and feels it. More than two decades of advancement in materials science and engineering have resulted in a much more rigid platform further stiffened for Type R duty and backed up by electronically adjustable shocks that work in concert with the firmer springs and anti-roll bars to keep the Civic considerably flatter through corners. Wider, stickier modern tires give it grip the Integra's engineers could only dream of.
It's when you push the Civic's considerably higher limits the soul of the Integra begins to shine through. The electric power steering neither loads nor lightens like as much as Integra's hydraulic rack, but the car it's connected to still behaves similarly. Enter a tight corner with too much speed and unload the rear end and unlike the previous model, the new Civic Type R will step the rear end out gently, just enough to let you point the car at the apex. Not as dramatic or as potentially fraught as the Integra, but the same feeling in your inner ear. Equally predictable, but far less likely to bite you.
The Civic leaves a corner like an Integra, too. Overwhelm it's shockingly strong grip and it'll push wide as you'd expect,and lifting slightly brings the nose back in as it should. Once again, though, if you time it right you can keep your foot in it and let the limited-slip differential pull the front end around the bend and off down the track.
Making it all possible is yet another hall of fame-worthy engine, the turbocharged 2.0-liter K20C1. Making 62 percent more power and, more noticeably, 138 percent more torque, it more than makes up for the extra weight. We've clocked the Civic at 5.3 seconds to 60 mph, 1.3 seconds quicker than the Integra, and it feels even quicker than that. Honda's worked on the tune for this new generation of Type R and the result is a power curve not at all unlike the Integra's. The low RPM turbo lag feels a lot like the Integra's general lack of torque, though the Civic's engine wakes from its doldrums much, much sooner. Like the Integra, once the Civic is on the boil, its engine just keeps pulling harder and harder the higher the revs climb. The ride doesn't last as long before upshift, what with redline coming 1,400 RPM sooner, but the trajectory is surprisingly similar.
And the shifter. The action is somehow even silkier and the stalk stubbier than the Integra's, but the Civic's shifter feels as if it's been lifted straight from its predecessor. It's still fingertip light and so precise you really have to be fully flustered to mess up a shift. The machined aluminum knob still freezes or burns your hand and it's still worth it because just look at it. Now more than ever, a manual transmission is worth celebrating and this one throws a rager.
The challenge isn't in figuring out how this car wants to be driven. The Civic is so communicative all these tips and tricks are obvious from the first corner. The thrill is in honing your driving to extract every last measure of speed from this car. It'll tell you when it has more to give, when you're doing the right things, and when you're getting in over your head. All you have to do is react.
Neither of these cars is perfect, of course. The Integra has to be revved to the moon to make any real power, and also just to cruise on the highway thanks to those crazy short gears. The Civic can only reasonably be driven in the comfort suspension setting if you value the discs in your back. These are cars freely compromised for a very specific reason which they pay back with interest.
The entire point is how they make you feel. The fact they make you feel so remarkably similar despite decades of engineering advancement is exceptional. It's a testament to engineering teams with a shared goal that crosses borders and oceans, a goal that goes deeper than make it fast to make it drive like a fast Honda. In an era where the value in a historic brand name like Type R more often than not ends at its public recognition, Honda's commitment to the heritage that built the name is all the more commendable.
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