[MonsterPatrol]

That is one sweet MR2. Any more details on this car? Is a T-Top for sure. Love to own one if I get one that's well taken care of.

[Kenneth Keymer]

What might it cost me to get my hands on one of these eh?

[Amsdoc]

During this lockdown I was wondering about the best car I have ever owned. I have had quite a few cars but the Integra type R will need a very special thing to knock it off its perch on the top of my list. Here goes a small story of my experience.

I was living in the UK at the time. I had a Ford Escort and wanted to upgrade. Plus the wife had just passed her UK driving test and wanted the Escort. I drove lots of potential cars including 3 series, A4, C class, Lexus IS which were amongst my desired cars. I had heard about the Integra type R but had never seen it or driven it as it was so rare. A senior of mine from work found out that I was looking for car and asked if I wanted to buy his Integra type R at a throw away price. He had just had a baby and a new car and his wife was after his head to sell it off. It being a specialist car, it was proving difficult to sell. I agreed to have a look. He was a proper enthusiast and first gave me a DVD to watch about the development of the type R. Then he brought it to work one day. He took me for a test drive. The crazy pinned to seat feeling I got in the narrow back lanes in UK country side was unmatched by any car I had ever driven(still holds true today). I drove it and loved it. Transferred the money and got it home same day. Took my wife who suffers from motion sickness for a test drive on a winding bit of road. BAD IDEA. I had to pull over for her to throw up a few times.

My Integra was in Honda racing white. It only came in 3 colours; white, black and red. There was only 1 engine choice, the 1.8 L VTEC. It had done only 20000 km and was made in 1999 and about 5 years old when I bought it.

Exteriors:
I loved the way this car looked as soon as I laid my eyes on it. Gleaming white. No scuff marks anywhere as it was very carefully looked after by the first owner. The red seats could be seen from outside as could the red brake callipers in the white alloys. Typical low slung sports car shape with a big and functional spoiler at the back. The most striking feature was the quad lights up front. An interesting story is that when it was first released in Japan, the public there hated the lights hence the front end was redesigned for Japan. Thankfully Europe and USA got the quad lights

Interiors:
It had red Recaro racing seats. Honda had made crazy efforts to skim weight like making the glass thinner, carbon fiber IRVM, Aluminium gear knob. The sun visors were paper thin. Yet it came with AC and a stereo. The Recaro seats were surprisingly comfortable. They hugged you in a way no other seat I have been in did. They also had very good side support to stop you from sliding off on high speed turns. The rear seats were big and functional. Two adults could easily sit comfortably for long journeys. It was a pain to fold the Recaro seats and to squeeze in though as the car was very low. There was not much of note in the interiors. You had hard lightweight plastics everywhere. Not much electronics. The big analogue instrument cluster gave you just enough info. Speedo, Tacho, Temperature, Fuel level and warning lights. The steering wheel was nice and soft to hold and was a three spoke design with 2 small and feeble horns on either side(I must have used the horn 1-2 times in the 4 years I had the car), housed an airbag and a big red "H" in the centre, The ORVMs were very good and were auto adjustable but not auto foldable. The gear lever was nice to hold and use but would get very cold in winter. It had a surprisingly big boot for a sports car with boot space of around 350 Ltrs which was very useful and with the rear seats folded you had a huge amount of space. I moved all my stuff from 1 flat to another in this car if a few trips. The AC wasn't of much use in UK but the heater worked fine. The stereo was nothing great to speak of. One cool thing was that every car ever made came stamped with a unique number on a steel plate that was placed exactly behind the gear lever.

Safety: It was a very lightweight car and felt it as soon as you got in it. Even insulation was kept at a minimum so you got plenty of road and wind noise which made it feel faster. Despite this it had quite a few safety features. It came with front and rear Disc brakes, ABS, 2 Air bags and Engine Immobiliser

Driving:
The engine is considered a piece of art. 1.8 L VTEC. The best part of this was that you could drive it like a normal car in city and it would give you great fuel economy( between 11 and 15 km/l) but when you wanted to go a bit faster, it would rev to 8000 rpm and the valves would open fully and you got crazy power after 4500 rpm. It was the same sensation you get when a plane takes off. It weighed only around 1100 kgs and had 200HP power which was phenomenal. Plus being so low and with the road and wind noise it made it feel much faster than it was actually going which was great. I only got 1 speeding ticket in it. The 5 speed manual gearbox was very slick and a joy to use. The ride was a big hard with stiff suspension but UK roads being extremely smooth never gave and problem. This also meant excellent stability through corners. The handling was superb and very precise and to this date it is voted as the best handling front wheel drive of all time by various car magazines and journalists. Like any FWD car it had a tendency to understeer when pushed hard especially in the wet. It rode on 195/55 R15 Bridgestone Potenza tyres which were amazing. Only problem was, they weren't available in the UK and if spoilt needed to come from Japan. This caused my the only time my car spent in the service station for some time. The 1st gen Jazz I got as a replacement while my tyres arrived just made me miss my car more. I did some long drives in it, including a few from Cornwall which is southwest tip of the UK to Glasgow in Scotland, a journey of 850 Km which could be done in around 8 hours. It was a pure joy to get in it everyday.

Unfortunately, I got a job where once a week I had to do a 200 mile trip to far northwest tip of Scotland. It was one of the most breathtaking drives and i did loads of bike rides in summer. But in winter the road would ice up and it snowed heavily. The roads sometimes would not get gritted and that was very dangerous. Every person who had the job before me had had an accident driving up there in winter. I had some hair raising incidents in the Integra too and thought that if I had an accident in this, I will probably die. So grudgingly, I exchanged it for a safe and sensible Audi A4 S line which felt like a huge downgrade after that. I actually sold it for 1000 pounds more than what i paid for it 5 years before which was an unbelievably good deal. In fact I have never felt like that in any other car since.

It remains the best car I have ever owned!









these are some photos of the Integra type R exactly similar to mine taken from generic photos from the net. Unfortunately cannot seem to find any photos of mine. Probably in some hard drive somewhere.