2024 Acura Integra Type S PVOTY Review: More to Love
The more time we spend behind the wheel of Acura’s manual-transmission fun machine, the more we love it.
Pros
- Wickedly fun to drive everywhere
- Usable everywhere, every day
- No boy-racer stigma
Cons
- Not a luxury car despite the price
- Only four seats
- Outdated and underutilized screens
To drive the 2024 Acura Integra Type S is to love it. To drive it on a track, a back road, and in traffic is to fully understand and truly appreciate it.
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Failing to shake down the Integra Type S leads to predictable and understandable questions. We’ve asked them ourselves. Isn’t it just a reskinned Honda Civic Type R? What about the Acura bodywork makes it worth $7,105 more than the Honda?
The Honda connection is undeniable, but the more you drive the Integra Type S, the more the tangible differences become clear. The Acura rides significantly better than the Honda and is appreciably quieter inside. It has more standard features (notably a bangin’ stereo) and a wider spread between its softest and hardest settings. It also looks like a car an adult would drive, for those neither in their 20s nor pretending they are. Yet without a stopwatch, the difference in on-track performance is imperceptible, just as it is on a mountain road.
“Cross-shopping between a Civic Type R and the Integra Type S is not a value problem,” senior features editor Kristen Lee said. “It’s a matter of taste.”
Then there arises the question of other similarly priced sports cars. Why would you buy a front-wheel-drive sports car at this price point when there are several rear-drive alternatives on offer? Because the Integra Type S goes harder than any cheaper rear-drive competitor and nearly as hard as the more expensive options. Beyond that, it’s more approachable than any of them. Drivers of any skill level who can work a clutch can immediately go fast in the Acura then learn from the car how to build their speed. Rare is the vehicle that offers either trait, much less both.
Put it on a track, and the Type S is a little monster. The chassis is so playful and forgiving, you feel no fear absolutely chucking it at every apex. The grip lets you carry shocking cornering speeds, the brakes let you wait until the same marker a supercar would use, and the limited-slip differential lets you drive out of the turn harder than any front-driver you’ve ever wheeled.
“The car is forgiving, too,” features editor Christian Seabaugh said. “Despite me flubbing a million lines, the chassis never got upset. It was always easy to bring the nose back under control with a dab of brake or letting off the throttle, which made it exceptionally easy to just focus on driving.”
Leave the track for the street, and it plays the same tune. With only 320 horsepower to its name, the Type S hangs with supercars on public roads, even with the stability and traction control fully on. The brakes are as confidence-inspiring, the pedals as perfectly spaced, and the gearbox as beautifully slick on the road as they are on the track.
Dial it back down, and the Type S turns back into a premium sport sedan, one you can easily drive every day doing all the mundane things and keep a smile on your face. Yes, it’s not exactly a luxury car despite its badge and price, and the lack of a fifth seat (a Civic Type R holdover) just feels silly, but this car isn’t really about luxury. It’s about grown-up fun, the kind that appeals as much to the youngest adults as it does the oldest. No one who chooses a Type S will ever regret not getting the Type R.
Were you one of those kids who taught themselves to identify cars at night by their headlights and taillights? I was. I was also one of those kids with a huge box of Hot Wheels and impressive collection of home-made Lego hot rods. I asked my parents for a Power Wheels Porsche 911 for Christmas for years, though the best I got was a pedal-powered tractor. I drove the wheels off it. I used to tell my friends I’d own a “slug bug” one day. When I was 15, my dad told me he would get me a car on the condition that I had to maintain it. He came back with a rough-around-the-edges 1967 Volkswagen Beetle he’d picked up for something like $600. I drove the wheels off that thing, too, even though it was only slightly faster than the tractor. When I got tired of chasing electrical gremlins (none of which were related to my bitchin’ self-installed stereo, thank you very much), I thought I’d move on to something more sensible. I bought a 1986 Pontiac Fiero GT and got my first speeding ticket in that car during the test drive. Not my first-ever ticket, mind you. That came behind the wheel of a Geo Metro hatchback I delivered pizza in during high school. I never planned to have this job. I was actually an aerospace engineering major in college, but calculus and I had a bad breakup. Considering how much better my English grades were than my calculus grades, I decided to stick to my strengths and write instead. When I made the switch, people kept asking me what I wanted to do with my life. I told them I’d like to write for a car magazine someday, not expecting it to actually happen. I figured I’d be in newspapers, maybe a magazine if I was lucky. Then this happened, which was slightly awkward because I grew up reading Car & Driver, but convenient since I don’t live in Michigan. Now I just try to make it through the day without adding any more names to the list of people who want to kill me and take my job.
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