I’m on the record as saying that ‘80s styling is not my jam. It still isn’t, but there are exceptions. We’ve had two ‘80s JDM mid-size saloons this week, so I hope you won’t mind if we round it off with a third. But unlike the Isuzu Gemini and the Toyota Carina, which I wasn’t overly impressed with, today’s feature four-door actually looks pretty damn nice – to me, anyways.
The Honda Quint Integra came out in February 1985, so it’s about as ‘80s as they come. Just like that Isuzu and the Toyota, to be honest (they came out in 1985 and 1984, respectively). The difference is the Honda designers ditched the etch-a-sketch and went the extra mile to give their boxy four-door some personality. And like that movie said, personality goes a long way.
I mean, it’s not rocket science, is it? Up front, they fashioned an integrally squinty trompe-l’oeil type of deal, with flip-up headlights and no grille to speak of, just to make everyone believe grandma’s grocery getter is a mid-engined sports car. In the middle, a fine-looking greenhouse with a low beltline, a thin C-pillar and a Faux-meister kink. Out back, a proper actual trunk – boxy but stylish – to give the whole car a still-kinda-trendy wedge shape. Man, those Honda guys pulled out all the tricks. And it worked.
Our feature car is the JDM-only Quint Integra four-door saloon. Out in the US, the Acura brand (top left) was kickstarted with the three- and five-door versions of this very car, alongside the Legend. The hatchbacks were the two initial cars in Japan too (top right), whereas the four-door (bottom left, in pre-facelift guise) only joined the range in October 1986. For reasons that remain quite nebulous to me, the Australian market five-door saloon was marketed as the Rover 416i (bottom right), but the coupé kept the Honda badge.
Whatever it said on the steering wheel, the Integra was marketed as a slightly upscale family car of the 1500-ish cc variety – a hugely important in many parts of Asia and pretty much all of Europe. Trim level designations, typically dignified by a couple of letters, varied from one market to the next, but the sportiest available trim in Japan was the GSi. As luck would have it, that’s exactly what I found.
All this sporty styling is all the more effective given the car’s dynamics. It was a great blend of Honda’s best bits: they started with a third-gen Civic saloon floorpan, made it slightly longer, added the CRX’s torsion bar double wishbone front suspension, and put that car’s sweet D-series ZC engine (also from the CRX) on top of it all.
Said engine was the Integra’s real showpiece – in the GSi, anyway, as other trim levels were not as well endowed. Some sources say it’s a contender for the best 4-cyl. of the decade, which given the staunch competition in that category, is a significant statement. All-alloy block, 16-valves, DOHC, 1590cc and fed by Honda’s own Programmed Fuel Injection system, the later models like out feature car would have had 120hp to play with. That was Golf GTI territory. Better-than-average reliability and decent fuel economy just tied the whole package together.
Mating this lively 4-cyl. with anything but a 5-speed manual would be downright sacrilegious. Unfortunately, the person who bought this car 30-plus years ago must have been something of a blasphemer, so it has the 3-speed auto. The Honda is also competently designed inside – way more interesting than the Carina, for example. Higher-trim versions like these were never seen in Europe, where the Integra was strangely sold as an economy car. Another swing and a miss on that market by Honda, which was made up for by getting massively popular in North America.
In Europe, the British-designed and -built Concerto took over in 1989, and Integras were never very common to begin with. However, the Integra sold well on both sides of the Pacific, yet this is the first one I’ve seen in eons anyplace. Hondas generally do not seem to age all that well in their country of origin – they are way underrepresented in the older metal I’ve been finding. Is that due to their being almost exclusively front-driven and thus deemed as uninteresting by the classic car crowd here? Remember, in Japan, these were also offered in quite basic trim and powered by the Civic’s modest 1.5 litre engine. Our feature car is the top of the line, but most were not as nice as this.
First-generation Integras, judging from the paucity of CC’s own archives, seem to have vanished from North American traffic also. Some were perhaps disposed of prematurely because of boy-racers; road salt must have claimed its fair share as well. But is that the whole story?
Related post:
Curbside Classic: 1989 Acura Integra LS – A Hot Hatch For The Civic Minded, by JPC
The front looks OK to my eyes but the overall proportions are wrong. Too much back door, not enough trunk.
But long back doors are much more useful when entering and exiting the vehicle. Maybe a two door would better suit your taste?
Nice one, Tatra. I can always count on your posts to learn about something I never knew existed. I always liked the 1st-gen Integras that came to the US, and I dig the very 80’s-style rims on this one. Shame about the slushbox though. The 5-speeds in Hondas of this era are so nice to row.
Normally I prefer hatchbacks over sedans, but in this case I think the extended trunk really helps the proportions. Although I do agree with polistra that from the profile the rear door is too long, but from other angles it’s fine.
I have to wonder whether anyone who puts an automatic in a Honda has ever tried the manual. Such a slick light gearchange it’s hard to believe it’s actually connected to anything mechanical. It makes you wonder what Honda knows about gearshift mechanisms that other companies don’t.
I had the 2nd generation Integra and agree somewhat about Honda automatic transmissions at least in the 80s. It was like dragging an anchor behind you until you hit top gear. The flip side tho is that the automatic transmission kept these cars from being modified into oblivion.
Honda was at the top of their game with styling in the 80’s….The 82 Accord was clean and handsome and the 86 was revolutionary with the super low hood and pop up headlights….a 4 door prelude. Honda was on a mission to lower the beltline and hood as much as possible. Using the duble wishbone suspension vs struts allowed them to this. With the exception of the CALTY designed 78 Celica, Hondas were the most handsome cars on the market
I’m a fan of the firstgen Integra 5-door, it had an almost unique niche whose only direct 5-door hatchback competition was the Dodge Lancer/Chrysler LeBaron GTS and the VW Golf GT (a rebranded 8-valve GTI, offered with rear doors for the first time in America). Maybe the Nissan Stanza.
Expand that to include sedans and besides the Jetta you get into GM N-bodies but still not much else unless you count mass-market sedans a size larger for the same money which had mighty appeal to those who needed to use the back seat enough to justify direct access. The 3-door faced much more direct competition, the not-an-econobox-but-nowhere-near-luxury-car-priced Japanese sporty coupe was a massively popular genre with every Japanese company offering their own on the US market and partnering with the Detroit 3 to put them in their showrooms.
On a related note I can see buying one of these with an automatic in Japan but for those who didn’t want to shift gears stateside a Pontiac Grand Am V6/auto, the kind of powertrain GM did well, would’ve been mighty tempting. Four and a stick were a Honda specialty, GM’s Tech-IV was a good engine for a mail truck…
Is this the lowest four-door car ever?
Another great example of the JDM serving every possible micro-niche while the rest of the world mumbles something about tooling costs being far too great etc. If you didn’t like the 3 or 5 door, then here’s the four door. If it’s a little too large, then there are half a dozen Civic variants, or if you need something a little larger, then there’s the Accord in 3door, 4 door, 5-door wagon, 3door AeroDeck, and Coupe. And maybe even 5door hatchback, IDK.
This is the first car (well the US Integra anyway) that proved to me that a 4cylinder with automatic didn’t have to suck. My friend let me drive hers from San Francisco to Lake Tahoe and up in the mountains the transmission was great when coupled with that eager 16v engine, to say nothing of the rest of the freeway parts. Sure, a stick might have been more fun, but the AT was no penalty.
A friend of a friend borrowed my pickup for a few days in the early ‘90’s and traded me her 1st Gen Integra 3 door hatch. I was excited to try it but was disappointed, despite – or maybe because of – spending a lot of time behind the wheel of slightly older Civics, including my own ‘82. No low-end, or at least that was the perception; if you kept the revs up it was OK but that got old. Plus, no AC and a huge solar load through the big rear window, onto our two little-at-the-time kids. I was happy to get my Ranger back. By contrast, when I recently tested an Acura RSX Type S before ultimately buying our Golf, I liked it enough to shake on a deal, until the seller admitted that he didn’t have clean title. Though as much as I liked the RSX, the Golf was even nicer.
added the CRX’s torsion bar double wishbone front suspension
Hmm. I understand that these were based on the gen3 Civic, and used their underpinnings, including their (single) strut front suspension, which the gen1 CRX also used.
The double wishbone front suspension arrived with the gen4 Civic in 1988, making it more advanced in that regard to this generation of Integra. The gen2 Integra, which arrived in 1989, used the Civic’s dual wishbone front suspension.
There’s still a couple around, one in my neighborhood, but the numbers are thinning. As daily drivers, they’ve become old. I suspect there’s some nice ones now stashed away in garages.
The second generation Integra without hidden headlights is the best looking Honda ever made, an still look good no matter how much they get boy-raced, and this is a close second.
Not many left in the wild here and 416 Rovers are basically extinct the JDM versions were here in good numbers when I came back from OZ but anal rust regs and boy racers harvesting engines has led to their demise as a species, a neighbour had one as his get to work beater years ago when it failed inspection he just kept driving it untill the police said not to hard to kill.
Those Rover 416s were never common at the best of times. They were a weird fit on the market; who did they think was going to buy a small Rover in Australia? Perhaps it was a sneaky way for Honda to get around import quota restrictions.
The notchback looks too much like a badly drawn Accord. Here in the US we only got the hatchback Integras which differentiated them from contemporary Civics and Accords. Here in rust free Oregon, there’s a 5 door Integra right up the street proving not all were rusted out or crashed.
As early as 1981, the hatchback model of the Civic was introduced in Europe as the Honda Quintett. In 1985 this was replaced by the Integra hatchback. With the 1.5 liter engine 85 PS and 5 speed manual gearbox or optionally automatic gearbox. The model, again called the Quintett, was not offered as an upscale model but as a competitor to Toyota Corolla, Nissan Sunny Liftback and similar competitors. Like the successor
Honda Concerto, sales weren’t very high.