Photo: Acura
When you bring back a powerful nameplate to life, the best stage to announce that is probably the Pebble Beach Concours D’Elegace. Lamborghini will present there the new Countach LPI 800-4. Audi will show the skysphere, its reinterpretation of the Horch 853A. Acura thought it was a good idea to disclose in the same spot that it will sell the Integra again. It even released a teaser of what we can expect for the front end.
The Integra was produced from 1986 up to 2006 and had four generations. It was once the most stolen car in the U.S. Honda killed it with the excuse that the coupe market had shrunk. It makes us wonder if it is now getting back to business in a world dominated by SUVs or if Acura will use the name in an SUV, as Mitsubishi did with the Eclipse.
The teaser image makes it look like a regular coupe. Acura just said in its press release that the new car would be “a new compact premium entrant,” which does not tell much apart from the market positioning Honda plans for it. Despite that, killing a coupe because nobody wanted to buy them anymore and bringing it back when that is even worse does not make much sense.
Honda could be counting on the force of the name to try to revive this market segment. However, that would probably be a short-lived success, with all the customers who wanted to have a new Integra buying them right from the start. We have already seen that happen with other retro design projects.
Suppose the new Acura Integra is to follow the tradition of its predecessors. In that case, it will be built over the Honda Civic platform and use the most powerful engines available for the sedan. We’ll learn more about that when the company puts it for sale in 2022.
The teaser image makes it look like a regular coupe. Acura just said in its press release that the new car would be “a new compact premium entrant,” which does not tell much apart from the market positioning Honda plans for it. Despite that, killing a coupe because nobody wanted to buy them anymore and bringing it back when that is even worse does not make much sense.
Honda could be counting on the force of the name to try to revive this market segment. However, that would probably be a short-lived success, with all the customers who wanted to have a new Integra buying them right from the start. We have already seen that happen with other retro design projects.
Suppose the new Acura Integra is to follow the tradition of its predecessors. In that case, it will be built over the Honda Civic platform and use the most powerful engines available for the sedan. We’ll learn more about that when the company puts it for sale in 2022.
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