Here’s Why the Acura Integra Type R Is Shooting Up in Value

this is a 2001 acura integra type-r and it's a special car you see people always focus on those 1990s japanese sports cars the NSX the Supra the 3000 GT but people forget that at the very end of the 1990s we also got this the Integra Type R the only type our Honda ever sold in North America until the new Civic Type R came out last year these days really pristine examples of the Integra Type art like this one are selling for as much as $40,000 today I'm gonna show you why now I've borrowed this Type R from a viewer here in New Jersey and there's a pristine unmodified example with just 37,000 miles and I'm gonna take you on a tour of it but first a little history now Honda has used the Type R badge for high-performance cars and Europe and in Asia for years but none of them ever came to North America we never got the NSX Type R we never got any Civic Type R the only type R we ever got was the Integra Type R badged as an acura they sold it here for four years in 1997 and 98 2000 and 2001 like this car during that time Acura sold fewer than thirty nine hundred examples of the Integra Type R in the United States and they were all stolen no but really they were all stolen the Integra Type R used a 195 horsepower 1.8 liter 4-cylinder known to car geeks as the b18c v and it was the hottest engine in the street racing world in the late 1990s and early 2000s as a result a lot of Integra Type R x' were stolen and stripped for their parts and especially for their engine many others were highly modified for street racing and for other types of racing and it's very unusual to find one that has survived unscathed and unmodified like this one and similar cars to this one had sold in the $30,000 range and up to $40,000 so today I'm gonna show you why I'm gonna take you on a tour of the Integra Type R I'm gonna show you all of the quirks and features of one of the coolest Japanese cars from the 1990s early 2000s then I'm gonna get behind the wheel and drive it and then I'm gonna give it a Doug door and for more of my thoughts on the integra type-r click the link below to visit autotrader.com slash oversteer where i've also rounded up a list of the coolest 1990s Japanese cars currently listed for sale on auto trader I'm gonna start under the hood where there of interesting quirks in this car first off take a look at the famous be 18 this is the engine that everybody was so interested in stealing back in the day here it is out in the open exposed there are a couple of interesting things under the hood one is from this position you can see the hood is rather high up it's at like a 90 degree angle well that's because it is currently in its service position mercedes-benz models have this and this car does too there are two different places where you can stick the hood prop if you stick the hood prop in the lower place it just looks like a normal hood and normal spot but if you actually want to do serious work to the car and you want to get the hood even higher there's a second spot where you can insert the hood prop and then the hood goes up at a higher angle to allow you more access to the engine another interesting thing under here take a look at the valve cover it looks so nice that's how it looked when these things were delivered new the interesting thing about it is it says on it Honda Motor Company they didn't even bother trying to disguise the fact that this was a Honda in other countries it was a honda engine even though they called it an acura in the united states the rack your badge is on the outside of the car but once he opened up the hood they were not shy about calling it a honda another interesting thing you'll find when you pop open the hood you look around for a minute and you start to realize this car has a lot of vin tags on it in fact it has really a lot you will find one underneath the hood on the hood itself on the passenger side front quarter panel on the driver side front quarter panel there's one in front of the engine there's one on the engine itself there's one on the firewall there's one on the transmission there's also one on the driver side door and then on the driver door jamb for the rear quarter panel on the passenger side door and on the door jamb on the passenger side for the rear quarter panel and there's another one on the trunk this car has like 25 VIN tags on it I've never seen anything like that before I think the reason they did that I think I mentioned this car was notorious for getting stolen Honda also had a lot of theft problems in the early 90s with other cars and I think they put all those VIN tags on every panel to kind of discourage people from stealing it stripping it for parts swapping out panels from stolen cars whatever if you have them all in place you know it's your Integra with all of the original panels mixed up moving on to the front end the front end of this car is rather interesting as you can see there are four little circular headlights now the interesting thing about it is the Japanese market integrity and integrity bars had normal sort of horizontal headlights only to you market cars had these circles in the front I don't know why they switch them the only thing I do know is that everyone hated them everybody who bought regular integra type-r has complained about these weird circle headlights on her otherwise sort of angular car now the interesting thing is that switching them out was not particularly easy not only was it a different front clip but it was different fenders and a different hood so you couldn't just easily go and swap your front clip and get the japanese-market headlights even though many people wanted to we were stuck with these probably some focus groups said they preferred the circles to the squares and so that's what Honda went with in the US market the next step i want to talk about the badges now if you look at the acura badges in the front and in the back you'll see that they're red and it looks like some sort of cheap modification that some tuner kid would do but actually all the type are Honda's had red Honda badges in Japan so they figured if they were gonna sell a type R in the United States they might as well make red acura badges so those red badges are actually unique and original to this car they were only on type arms one other interesting thing on the subject of badging is the Type R badges themselves there are a few type r badges the outside of this car and they were decals the rear quarter panels contain the most prominent ones and you can see that it's two separate decals one of them says Integra type and the other one says R and it is kind of cool of course they went with decals for weight savings obviously there's also another one on the rear of the car it says Integra type and then R now if this car came out today it would be full of Type R badges on every surface letting everybody know that it's a Type R but back then these things were a lot more subtle this one only has six Type R badges throughout the car the three that I already showed you there's also one under the hood it says Type R in one place under the hood and then there are two in the interior which I'll cover in a second the next step I want to discuss wheels and in the discussion of wheels we must also discuss colors now Acura did an interesting thing with the colors of this car in 97 and 98 the first two years that came out it was only available in white and the wheels were also painted white to match they skipped the 99 model year for some reason then it came back for 2001 and then the car was only available in yellow or black and the wheels were now gray no longer painted to match the body next I'm moving around to the back there are a couple of interesting quirks worth noting back here starting with the antenna this being a 1990s car you get in turn it on turn on the radio and then the antenna in back automatically whirs up to place itself in the best possible position for radio reception when you turn off the radio of course the antenna whirs back down automatically and you can hear it from inside the car a couple of other interesting items in the back one is that it says Integra in the bumper acura didn't put Integra badges on this car instead they decided to just sort of be boss it into the rear bumper the weird thing was the Integra Type R also said Integra Type R right below the taillight so it was sort of on there twice it's worth noting it also says Integra in the front bumper just to really drive home the point that this is in fact an Integra also worth noting back here is the wing the wing was unique to the type r none of the other Integris headed it was very large by 1990s standards but it wasn't quite large enough when you're inside the car and you look in the rearview mirror you will notice that what you see primarily is wing had they made it a little taller or shorter it wouldn't have blocked your vision but in this height it does next up moving on to the rear of the car a couple of interesting things once you open the hatchback first off it's pretty roomy back here even though this sort of looks like a coupe it is in fact a hatchback it's got a reasonable mount of cargo room and you can fold down the seats so you can transport a television or furniture in your Integra Type R also interesting you can see a bar in the cargo area back there that's the bar that goes across the whole car four chassis stiffening to improve handling and make the car stiffer only the type R's had that bar next I'm moving inside the car we start with the first thing you notice when you open the door that would be the floor mats which are rather interesting the floor mat on the driver side says Integra Type R makes sense that's what the car is on the passenger side it's just the Acura logo admittedly it's red and sporty but they don't match one is Integra Type R and one is a cura I'm not sure that I've really seen that before in any other car the next thing you notice almost immediately is in the center and the center control stack it is rimmed in carbon-fiber except it isn't carbon fiber it's just plastic sort of designed to look like carbon fiber but that must have been pretty forward-thinking for the time nobody was doing carbon fiber or fake carbon fiber back then this had to have been one of the first cars that had it it isn't just in the center control stick it's also in the gauge cluster around the gauges and on the driver side climate control vent it is not on the passenger side climate control event if you wanted your carbon fiber and you were a passenger well too bad next up we have to discuss the cupholders in this car first off I'm surprised that this car even has cup holders as many cars from this era didn't but this one does but maybe it shouldn't today push out from that carbon fiber center control stack and they are the flimsiest crappiest tiniest cupholders you'll ever see a total afterthought there's no point in even including them but they're there the thing that I find most interesting about the cupholders is though below the area where the cupholders come out you can see there's the center console and more fake carbon fiber but there's a little bit of film below that area Acura knew that the cup holders would drip and condense and drip water and drinks onto that center console so they put a little bit of film there to protect it and that is smart thinking that film is now still on this car almost 20 years later the next up here's something I've never seen before in any automobile go up to the clock which is on the top of the dashboard pretty standard placement the weird thing is the hour and minute adjustments are behind a little plastic door it is so weird it's like they didn't want to clutter the cabin with the hour and minute adjustments so they let you hide them behind a door when you're not using them when you want to change the hour a minute you open the door and then you can change the time just like in every other car and speaking of weird buttons I want to talk about the steering wheel the steering wheel in this car has a horn on it obviously but the horn is in little buttons to the right and left of the center of the steering wheel this was tremendously common in 1990s cars but you never see it today back then nineties cars it's like they couldn't figure out how to make the airbag work with the horn so the airbag is in the middle and the horn are just these buttons on the side it's very stupid in retrospect but back then this was how almost everybody did it moving further back beyond the parking brake lever you will see the center console lid which is finished in this cool Alcantara and it has this red stitching this is very commonplace now in performance cars but back then it really wasn't and it looks cool the seats also have the same Alcantara and red stitching and then in the middle they have sort of this mesh to keep you gripped in place when you're going around now further back behind that center console lid you will notice the plaque and that is another place where you'll find a type or logo in this car the plaque is super cool it's actually numbered the first two numbers of the model year and then the serial number that yours was in the production line the strange thing about the plaque though is that it sort of faces the rear seat passengers in fact you can't really see it when you're sitting in the driver's seat they could have mounted it on the dashboard wherever but they didn't so you'd never really know it was there unless you went looking for it nonetheless proud type our owners surely tell their passengers to look behind them so you can see my plaque next we have to discuss the door locks now like I said before this car has power door locks and the power door lock button is right there on the door panel pretty standard nothing unusual but it has an interesting flaw now like I mentioned this car was commonly stolen people were trying to get the engine the transmission a lot of other stuff out of it and apparently the easiest way to break into a Type R you would sort of peel the door back stick a co hanger down and then you could just flip up that little door lock switch because of where it was positioned on the door panel [Music] it was just so easy to access and flip up and then you could unlock the doors and get in a lot of integra type-r owners pulled the fuse for their door lock switch so that that switch had no effect when you pushed it or pulled it so that people couldn't break in and steal the car next I wanna talk about the shift lever now the shift lever in this car was unique to the tie bar you can see it looks kind of cool especially with that fake carbon fiber behind it it also has a unique shift knob that looked kind of cool with little red gear pattern on the top of it to emphasize the cars sportiness next I want to talk about interior storage now this car has the usual stuff it as a center console has a glovebox nothing out of the ordinary except it is one weird little hidden storage compartment to the left of the steering wheel basically in the drivers footwell in the bottom of the dashboard there's a tiny little hidden compartment very small I guess you would put coins in there if you're going into a tollbooth situation frequently that's about all it's big enough to carry but it's there the hidden storage compartment in the integra type-r but i want to move back to the glove box for a minute because that's where you'll find the owner's manual now obviously this owner's manual pouch has a couple of interesting quirks one of which is this little panel called understanding body language apparently it was a pamphlet they gave it new Acuras in 2001 to let you know what people meant at body shops when they said certain things there's also this little supplement in there that describes how air bags work this isn't an Acura specific supplement apparently it was put in a lot of cars to just sort of explain air bags since they were relatively new in 2001 maybe the most interesting thing about this pamphlet I find this drawing to be a little bit morbid it's basically explaining to you that getting in an accident high-speed with a car without airbags has the same force as jumping off a three-story building and then it shows sort of what it would look like if you jumped off a three-story building just in case you didn't know that's kind of an interesting illustration in an automotive pamphlet also there is a little pamphlet inside the owners manual entitled Acura total luxury care when you open it up it says within this portfolio you will find several useful items to maintain your new Acura including an Acura ballpoint pen and indeed all these years later the you're a ballpoint pen is still here inside this pouch a useful item to maintain my new Acura next up the owners manual doesn't have any really unusual or interesting things but I did find one unusual item on page 218 under exterior vehicle care it tells you that twice a year you are supposed to clean the antenna with a dry cloth and a mild detergent can't you just imagine someone putting that on their calendar well it's June get out the dry cloth and the mild detergent it's time to clean the antenna the other interesting thing inside that owners manual pouch how about the original buyers order I no longer had the original window sticker but the buyers orders in there this car was leased when it was new and the deal this guy got he paid MSRP he leased it at 4 grand down and two hundred and sixty bucks a month which today sounds like a pretty good deal for a car that ended up becoming an icon next I'm moving on to the rear seats yes this car has rear seats and like usual I will now attempt to climb inside I've already moved the front seat forward to prepare so you get in step and it's actually not all that bad put the seat back back and it really isn't so bad although I think if you put the front seat back in a normal position it would be a little bit challenging there aren't really any interesting things in the back except for the fact that the back seats are made of the same material is the front seats the same Alcantara and red stitching and mess and that's cool it's a cool attention to detail even though Acura surely knew that no one would ever actually use the back seats in this car also interesting is there is a little coat hanger behind the driver seat one coat hanger there's not one on the other side just in case you have to hang your coat while you're driving your type are also interesting of course in the backseat I can see the little numbered plaque a lot better than the front seat passengers can and so those are the quirks and features of an all original 2001 Integra Type R next up it's time to drive this thing I've never even been inside an Integra Type R before so I can't wait drive it in the Type R first impression it's rides a little rough one thing that you notice about 90s car is again amidst there's just so much more visibility you can just the windshield goes lower the dork are lower because they weren't doing this whole high beltline thing for cooler styling and layer bags and a side airbags everything the door the eight pillars are narrower and smaller you can just see better in these cars I like how responsive it is it's kind of interesting even though it's a four sliminess it's a light car and so you just tap the accelerator and it starts to move typebar I can't believe it this is a really really nice one I'm surprised it's not rattling it's not crate creaking or shaking or anything everything is still nice on this one the right is actually not too bad it feels pretty reasonable I was I've been told by people this is the harshest car in a world I never it said it's it seemed it is a little harsher than normal car but by the standards of modern sports cars which are a lot harsher this really isn't so bad Wow yeah it feels pretty quick yeah it feels pretty quick it's actually kind of surprising and that wasn't even anywhere near a redline I tried to get it up there but it takes a while it's a long way to go because red light in this cars like 8500 rpm it feels quick there's no question about it I was always told this car there's no torque etc you got to go to the top of the rev range to get power but it actually I think because the car is just so light it doesn't require that much to get it moving it makes a lot of noise too it makes a lot a lot of noise down shifts are really easy it's a lot of fun obviously and it's a car it's one of these cars that you can really kind of floor it and enjoy it because you're not concerned about you know you're not concerned about going 900 miles an hour you look down you're going 115 it's like oh crap the speed only goes 140 is the highest number on it goes to 150 you're not worried about killing yourself or anybody else yeah I mean it feels really quick at this it just gets progressively quicker as you get progressively higher in the red range which was the whole thing about VTEC and the steering is good I mean it's not it's not amazing it isn't like a modern like really high-performance sports car but it's good for a car it's just that the s2000 was better but it's still quick the steering is very quick surprisingly so and there's just not all that much car to move around I think the steering is just as good as I was expecting you hear all this was the best Hamlin front-wheel drive car ever when it came out and I think I could totally understand that by modern standards it's just a little behind but not much in terms of acceleration though it's reasonably quick if you get up there but it's true what everybody said you got to get high in the range to really feel like this is a fast car at lower rpms you for it and it feels ok but not that much goes on but when you get up to four or five six seven thousand it really it's like switches keep being flipped above those speeds by modern standards that isn't insanely fast and in the handling isn't quite there but by the standards of its time you could totally see how it would have been so cool and it is and you do feel super connected and like one with the car and that's a special feeling because fewer and fewer cars are like that this car is in this sort of the same vein of the e30 m3 where it's like yeah it's not the fastest or the tightest or whatever but like at that time it was and this was like a special moment in time especially in the Japanese car world this was the type are the famous type on and so that's the Acura Integra Type R now I can already imagine people are screaming down in the comments about how they can't believe anyone would pay $40,000 for this but here's the thing while the muscle cars have ruled the 1960s collector car market and air-cooled Porsches have ruled the 1980s I suspect it will be Japanese cars that come out of the 1990s and gaining value and this is one of the coolest 90s early 2000s Japanese sports cars especially in pristine condition with low miles unmodified and not stolen and now it's time to give it a dug score starting with the weekend categories and styling the Integra Type R looks fine not particularly special it beautiful and it gets a 5 out of 10 acceleration to 0 to 60 in 7 seconds and it gets a 2 out of ten handling is good I bet it was great for the time period but by modern standards it's not as quick or precise as front-wheel drive stuff like the Ford Fiesta ST and it gets a six out of ten fun factor is good it's a thrilling part of drive though it isn't incredibly fast and it gets a six out of ten cool factor is above average for car people it's very cool but for regular people it's just an old Honda and it gets a six out of ten for a total weekend score of twenty five out of fifty next up for the daily score is starting with the features obviously it doesn't have much in the way of modern tech and it gets a two out of ten comfort is only okay the write is harsh and there's a lot of cabin noise but it's not that bad and it gets a four out of ten quality is good nothing is especially upscale or finely crafted but the interior is durable and it's a nice reliable Honda and it gets a six out of ten practicality is good too doors hurts it but it has a reasonably large cargo area in four seats and it gets a four out of ten finally there's value by modern standards the ITR isn't an amazing performer but it's fun to drive and values are sure to go up so it gets a six out of ten for a total daily score of 22 out of 50 add it all up and the Doug score is 47 out of 50 and here's how it stacks up against other 1990s Japanese sports cars the s2000 is the king of this hill on the ITR ties the Eclipse gsx which is a very similar car not surprisingly it loses to the 3000 GT vr4 in the FDR x7 but it beats out the mr2 Spyder though not by as much as you'd think and of course everything on this list beats out the Lamborghini lm002 there is also a little circle but it's blank I have no idea what it was supposed to be but maybe it's just there for symmetry D'Arnot came a little too late being stolen and very desired in the street-racing world for its engine in its blah blah blah

Channel: Doug DeMuro

Views: 1,589,577

Rating: 4.8463082 out of 5

Keywords: acura integra type r, integra type r, honda integra type r, acura itr, honda itr, acura type r, integra type r review, acura integra type r review, honda integra type r review, acura integra type-r, integra type-r, type-r, honda integra type-r, doug demuro, demuro

Id: 2-BfMHT633o

Length: 22min 56sec (1376 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 02 2018