The New Acura Integra: A Never-So-Slightly More Luxurious Civic Si
As we take a closer look at the new Acura Integra, it's clear that this is not just a refresh of the classic Civic Si, but rather a reimagining of what makes a front-wheel drive car great. The interior of the Integra is one area where it truly shines, with luxurious materials and ergonomically designed seats that make long road trips a breeze. But despite its many upgrades, the Integra still falls short in terms of luxury, with a more affordable Civic Si offering similar features at a lower price point.
One of the standout features of the Integra is its unique interior design, which boasts a bold and sporty aesthetic that's sure to turn heads on the road. The seats are particularly noteworthy, with a sleek and modern design that's both comfortable and visually striking. While the Civic Si's standard seats were lacking in this regard, the Integra takes it up a notch with its luxurious take on the classic design. However, it's worth noting that the Integra's interior design is not without its flaws, particularly when it comes to the placement of controls and buttons.
Another area where the Integra shines is in its entertainment system, which boasts a state-of-the-art 3D sound system that's sure to please even the most discerning audiophile. The system is paired with a sleek and modern infotainment interface that makes navigating menus and adjusting settings a breeze. However, it's worth noting that this level of luxury comes at a cost, with the Integra's top trim priced at over $40,000.
But despite its many upgrades, the Integra still has some key drawbacks. One area where it falls short is in terms of sportiness, as the car's CVT transmission and relatively underpowered engine make it feel sluggish on the road. Additionally, the Integra's interior design while visually striking, feels a bit bland and unremarkable at times, particularly when compared to the more aggressive lines of the Civic Si.
Ultimately, whether or not the new Acura Integra is worth the investment depends on what you're looking for in a car. If luxury and amenities are top of mind, the Integra may be the better choice, but if sportiness and value are more important, the Civic Si remains a great option. One thing's for sure, however - with its unique blend of style, substance, and cutting-edge tech, the Integra is an exciting addition to the Acura lineup.
It's worth noting that the Canadian market will not have access to the full range of trim levels available in the US, but instead will only be offered in a single top-of-the-line model. While this may limit its appeal for some buyers, it also means that the Integra is more affordable than its US counterparts, making it a great option for those looking for a luxury compact car without breaking the bank.
In terms of comparison to other luxury compacts on the market, the Integra falls short in several key areas. The Audi A3 and Mercedes-Benz CLA offer more luxurious interior materials, more aggressive styling options, and a range of advanced safety features that are not available on the Integra. However, it's worth noting that these cars come at a much higher price point, with starting prices ranging from $40,000 to over $50,000.
In contrast, the Honda Accord offers a similar level of luxury and amenities at a lower price point, making it a great option for those looking for a front-wheel drive car without sacrificing too much in terms of performance or features. While the Accord may not have the same sleek and sporty aesthetic as the Integra, it's clear that Honda has put a lot of thought into creating a car that's both luxurious and practical.
Ultimately, whether or not the new Acura Integra is worth the investment depends on what you're looking for in a car. If luxury and amenities are top of mind, the Integra may be the better choice, but if sportiness and value are more important, the Civic Si remains a great option. One thing's for sure, however - with its unique blend of style, substance, and cutting-edge tech, the Integra is an exciting addition to the Acura lineup.
"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enyou know what thomas i think they've priced this accurately oh oh okay okay it's an integra part of the business oh okay okay to get the pricing right yeah yeah yeah okay um uh gonna be a pun legend yeah yeah yeah okay uh the the the the the the the r the rdx yeah is a is a car that they make no i'll tell you more about how to make accurate puns oh okay and i'll exit this conversation once you nail it yeah yeah okay um um the uh the the i i'm i'm a i'm a pilot that's a honda but like we will get we will get we're getting there we'll get we'll get okay you're watching throttle house i'm thomas and i'm james and this is the civic si okay little joke but this integra is mostly a re-skinned civic but that's okay because historically that's what they are acura take a civic and they make it a better car the problem arises when the packaging is just for show so as a test here's fiji water yum and then we got pure life by the scumbags at nestle now thomas a man of taste a connoisseur someone who can detect nuances quite well the question is can he tell the difference that's all that really matters i don't i don't understand you don't need to thomas you don't need to okay and if you're new to throttled house we do car reviews track tests and quite a lot of messing about so subscribe hit the bell okay acura have done this backwards i'm sitting in the manual which is only available in the top trim so it does mean you also get a limited slip differential but the point is if you want all of the sportiness that comes with the civic si you must opt for the top trim integra and the good news is if you do that the civic si already drove great and this is for the most part mechanically identical so for your 43 000 canadian it inherits a great shifter with short meaningful throws and a turbocharged 200 horsepower engine that loves to rev now the 1.5 liter in this is not quick in fact if you called it anemic that wouldn't even be that harsh and we actually raced this same engine in the civic si against the new gr86 and it got pummeled and this with all its extra luxuries is even heavier but come on you got it kind of the short gearing and the satisfying shifts of the shifter and the fact that it has that single mass flywheel from the civic si means that you can shift through the rev hang which there's still a lot of too much in fact if i rev out even second gear clutch in six five mile five and then you can shift i mean you can shift earlier than that but if you want to be kind to your clutch you've got a long point also if i'm gonna be picky and i'm gonna be picky the sound of that clutch on on a quick shift banging back up i mean it's cheap 43 grand that feels and sounds cheap also despite the clutch being light and easy to live with there's not much physical feel to the biting point it's not letting you know much the most it lets you know is this thankfully in terms of the shifting experience even though we don't get the shift lights like we did in the canadian civic si it still has a fun rev limiter there's no economy car feeling when you hit it it doesn't just go it does so it shares the personality with the civic si of absolutely asking you to drive the snot out of it it wants to be punished dirty little bastard well that made me uncomfortable anyway compared to the si this is longer it's wider as james mentioned it's heavier but from a driving perspective the most important difference between this and the si is that you can option the integra with adaptive dampers that was a burnout there's nothing to do with the adaptive dampers but it could do a burnout so i mean if you can burn out you burn out so as i said this has been optioned with the adaptive dampers all the way from comfort to sport in comfort mode the ride is good and in sport mode the ride is good it's not a huge difference i'll say that it's a little bit stiffer in sport but the point is is that this car is very well damped all together i think it's a wonderful riding car as a result and i think i think it's a bit quieter on the highway but i have to agree with james there's definitely a lot of faults in the way that it drives but it does have a personality that it just kind of lets you just ring the crap out of it which is lots of fun steering is also very good not a ton of feedback but it's well weighted and very accurate and quick story when we were down in california filming the gt4 rs we had a civic si press car down there and we were at big willow i took the si around big willow for a couple laps and the chassis is fantastic assuming they didn't screw it up in this one this is a really good handling car and the fact that it has a limited sub differential which you can only get in the manual is really important in a little torquey front-wheel drive car like this i don't think i can impress upon you just how important a limited sub-differential is in a torquey front-wheel drive car it means you can plant your foot around the corner it means you couldn't do burnouts it is the cherry on top of a fun little front-wheel drive sports stand basically this car is leaving me quite conflicted because on one hand it's just a kind of a better civic si which is a great car but there's also a civic si which is a great car and it's cheaper so the differences can't all be in the drive i mean i think this looks a bit cooler okay integra okay so the big boots big boots big boots to fill i always thought the integra was kind of a cool looking little car it was yeah the two-door thing yeah but the thing is is that this to me from every single angle just looks like a whatever like an ilx yeah and the smaller tls tlx i don't think this is so this is jack sparrow black um wait white yeah it's a majestic black pearl which i don't know yeah he had pictures of it on his wall because he loves his black was a noisy ship though wasn't it for a while well barbosa is a prick but yeah i don't think the black helps it that much because the black aspect badge is lost the black grill is lost well it's like totally blacked out everything is yeah yeah it's me it's me yeah is it or is it is it is it probably needing a little bit of dynamic difference in it because it's otherwise a boring looking vehicle well it's got an embossed integra there okay i do like that actually i do like that i think that the badge could be chrome though at least like give me something it's like this card disappears in shape from the from in in many is this a sleeper it's a 1.5 liter yeah but what it is you're comparing that thing to the moon okay so it does have a lot in common with the side but what it doesn't have in common is that it's the hatch it is the hatch so yes they've put on this carbon fiber spoiler here it's a legit current fiber too actually that's pretty cool yeah that's big it's big it's very big and uh it's big subwoofer from the upgraded els studio which the seats fold flat and it would make a huge space i will say though that there is quite a large like lip to get over yeah right like if you've got a big heavy suitcase it's not going to be super easy to get it but at least there's a ton of space do you find that these lights resemble the genesis coupe a bit like from the back yeah yeah yeah but from the back and down low what i did notice is that there's like some serious rsx vibes i think it's pretty cool but overall it looks a bit gentle it doesn't look like a crazed car no the wheels aren't cool enough and the a-spec doesn't get that much more aggressive looking i don't think anything changes if if much at all but then maybe they're leaving room for the type s and the civic right now looks so nice yeah the civic is handsome especially in the orange we had the civic is a good looking car and i think that for this being the premium brand it maybe should have actually i don't know what they could have done with it to be fair like the 10 grand more you'd hope carries in itself on the inside but i don't know the thing is that when i look at this it's not tickling me anywhere that's good i want i want a family member thanksgiving look let's just look inside that's where the money is that's where the money is okay yeah money yep money what the extra stuff you get oh for the money i'm gonna introduce you to some red ultra suede sweet seats in interior listen the seats are very nice they look a lot better and compared to the si they're a massive step up do you think so yes uh visually visually they're also kind of hard on the butt i found yeah and like arguably maybe not quite bolstered enough because the car does have quite a lot of grip it does yeah um but no otherwise they are they're much nicer to look at and to into like the touch points of them are a lot better than the si seats so i don't want to bring up nations because we're already divided but okay as we know the canadian civic si is already blessed with lots of good things we get all the stuff so the stuff this gets is big it's bigger it's a bigger deal for the americans like the heated seats the heated rear seats yeah the steering wheel yeah digital gauge cluster our civic side has digital full digital gauge yeah we get the whole thing on the si so this is less attractive to us than it is to our american brother yeah as a buying proposition yeah um i liked the si's full width um i think i agree with you i think that was a little bit more retro looking this is quite a cheap replacement yeah i i don't i don't know if i really like that yeah like yeah for 43 grand yeah that's some yeah yeah they could have they could have stepped up you know when you i know the according to tlx are different yes but that jump with the center console is quite different and when you go like this it feels like a civic yeah it's still very civic it's still very civic in here it does have the els studio 3d sound system which is dope yeah really really really good um otherwise i don't know it's cool but it's mostly a civic at least in canada it's like very very similar you're basically paying for the sound system and the seats like if you zoom out those are the big things pretty much because you don't get any power upgrades no i think if you know if the cvt just based on our concerns with the manual on this one yeah if the cvt was a dual clutch transmission and you could just do a normal aspect that's where because the civic site is manual only yeah i mean to be fair i haven't driven the cbt in this but i have driven cvts in honda's before and was never impressed at best they're fine they're never sporting no exactly uh other issues that we've got to point out rear seats yeah i i don't even even fit i've got the headroom it's just i'm really 5 foot 10. it's just weird sound man harrison really doesn't fit yeah i don't know listen i like this but i would i will caveat with at least in canada this interior at least is not enough of a step up from the civic si to warrant the cost unless you you really prioritize the sound system unless you're really proud you want the accurate batch but yeah this is still it love like the civic assad was already very good no no that means that everything works entertainment's great climate's great like like ergonomically the things that the things are buttons are buttons it's perfect like there's no i have no issues with this ergonomically as a car but the civic si exists that's the only issue so yeah so take from that what you will but they're both great and potentially more purchasable than things like the golf r which is still a year and a half away and doesn't nail the interior ergonomics the way this does no this is uh this is a much a big step over the current generation of golfs uh should we do a conclusion yeah okay so the new acura integra is a never so slightly more luxurious civic si in its top trim though its luxuries still fall short of similarly priced luxury compacts like the audi a3 or the mercedes cla and its sportiness offers nothing more than a much cheaper civic si and yes as we said national product packaging is the enemy here but if you really are being forced to spend 40 grand on a front-wheel drive honda product our money would probably go towards the much quicker and much loved albeit less nimble and subdued looking 2-liter turbo 10-speed honda accord all this to say with its adaptive dampers fancy sound system and fancy badge the integra is a top-trim civic si which means it's still good but that enters it into a spicy price point where it's more than a little threatened thanks for watching youyou know what thomas i think they've priced this accurately oh oh okay okay it's an integra part of the business oh okay okay to get the pricing right yeah yeah yeah okay um uh gonna be a pun legend yeah yeah yeah okay uh the the the the the the the r the rdx yeah is a is a car that they make no i'll tell you more about how to make accurate puns oh okay and i'll exit this conversation once you nail it yeah yeah okay um um the uh the the i i'm i'm a i'm a pilot that's a honda but like we will get we will get we're getting there we'll get we'll get okay you're watching throttle house i'm thomas and i'm james and this is the civic si okay little joke but this integra is mostly a re-skinned civic but that's okay because historically that's what they are acura take a civic and they make it a better car the problem arises when the packaging is just for show so as a test here's fiji water yum and then we got pure life by the scumbags at nestle now thomas a man of taste a connoisseur someone who can detect nuances quite well the question is can he tell the difference that's all that really matters i don't i don't understand you don't need to thomas you don't need to okay and if you're new to throttled house we do car reviews track tests and quite a lot of messing about so subscribe hit the bell okay acura have done this backwards i'm sitting in the manual which is only available in the top trim so it does mean you also get a limited slip differential but the point is if you want all of the sportiness that comes with the civic si you must opt for the top trim integra and the good news is if you do that the civic si already drove great and this is for the most part mechanically identical so for your 43 000 canadian it inherits a great shifter with short meaningful throws and a turbocharged 200 horsepower engine that loves to rev now the 1.5 liter in this is not quick in fact if you called it anemic that wouldn't even be that harsh and we actually raced this same engine in the civic si against the new gr86 and it got pummeled and this with all its extra luxuries is even heavier but come on you got it kind of the short gearing and the satisfying shifts of the shifter and the fact that it has that single mass flywheel from the civic si means that you can shift through the rev hang which there's still a lot of too much in fact if i rev out even second gear clutch in six five mile five and then you can shift i mean you can shift earlier than that but if you want to be kind to your clutch you've got a long point also if i'm gonna be picky and i'm gonna be picky the sound of that clutch on on a quick shift banging back up i mean it's cheap 43 grand that feels and sounds cheap also despite the clutch being light and easy to live with there's not much physical feel to the biting point it's not letting you know much the most it lets you know is this thankfully in terms of the shifting experience even though we don't get the shift lights like we did in the canadian civic si it still has a fun rev limiter there's no economy car feeling when you hit it it doesn't just go it does so it shares the personality with the civic si of absolutely asking you to drive the snot out of it it wants to be punished dirty little bastard well that made me uncomfortable anyway compared to the si this is longer it's wider as james mentioned it's heavier but from a driving perspective the most important difference between this and the si is that you can option the integra with adaptive dampers that was a burnout there's nothing to do with the adaptive dampers but it could do a burnout so i mean if you can burn out you burn out so as i said this has been optioned with the adaptive dampers all the way from comfort to sport in comfort mode the ride is good and in sport mode the ride is good it's not a huge difference i'll say that it's a little bit stiffer in sport but the point is is that this car is very well damped all together i think it's a wonderful riding car as a result and i think i think it's a bit quieter on the highway but i have to agree with james there's definitely a lot of faults in the way that it drives but it does have a personality that it just kind of lets you just ring the crap out of it which is lots of fun steering is also very good not a ton of feedback but it's well weighted and very accurate and quick story when we were down in california filming the gt4 rs we had a civic si press car down there and we were at big willow i took the si around big willow for a couple laps and the chassis is fantastic assuming they didn't screw it up in this one this is a really good handling car and the fact that it has a limited sub differential which you can only get in the manual is really important in a little torquey front-wheel drive car like this i don't think i can impress upon you just how important a limited sub-differential is in a torquey front-wheel drive car it means you can plant your foot around the corner it means you couldn't do burnouts it is the cherry on top of a fun little front-wheel drive sports stand basically this car is leaving me quite conflicted because on one hand it's just a kind of a better civic si which is a great car but there's also a civic si which is a great car and it's cheaper so the differences can't all be in the drive i mean i think this looks a bit cooler okay integra okay so the big boots big boots big boots to fill i always thought the integra was kind of a cool looking little car it was yeah the two-door thing yeah but the thing is is that this to me from every single angle just looks like a whatever like an ilx yeah and the smaller tls tlx i don't think this is so this is jack sparrow black um wait white yeah it's a majestic black pearl which i don't know yeah he had pictures of it on his wall because he loves his black was a noisy ship though wasn't it for a while well barbosa is a prick but yeah i don't think the black helps it that much because the black aspect badge is lost the black grill is lost well it's like totally blacked out everything is yeah yeah it's me it's me yeah is it or is it is it is it probably needing a little bit of dynamic difference in it because it's otherwise a boring looking vehicle well it's got an embossed integra there okay i do like that actually i do like that i think that the badge could be chrome though at least like give me something it's like this card disappears in shape from the from in in many is this a sleeper it's a 1.5 liter yeah but what it is you're comparing that thing to the moon okay so it does have a lot in common with the side but what it doesn't have in common is that it's the hatch it is the hatch so yes they've put on this carbon fiber spoiler here it's a legit current fiber too actually that's pretty cool yeah that's big it's big it's very big and uh it's big subwoofer from the upgraded els studio which the seats fold flat and it would make a huge space i will say though that there is quite a large like lip to get over yeah right like if you've got a big heavy suitcase it's not going to be super easy to get it but at least there's a ton of space do you find that these lights resemble the genesis coupe a bit like from the back yeah yeah yeah but from the back and down low what i did notice is that there's like some serious rsx vibes i think it's pretty cool but overall it looks a bit gentle it doesn't look like a crazed car no the wheels aren't cool enough and the a-spec doesn't get that much more aggressive looking i don't think anything changes if if much at all but then maybe they're leaving room for the type s and the civic right now looks so nice yeah the civic is handsome especially in the orange we had the civic is a good looking car and i think that for this being the premium brand it maybe should have actually i don't know what they could have done with it to be fair like the 10 grand more you'd hope carries in itself on the inside but i don't know the thing is that when i look at this it's not tickling me anywhere that's good i want i want a family member thanksgiving look let's just look inside that's where the money is that's where the money is okay yeah money yep money what the extra stuff you get oh for the money i'm gonna introduce you to some red ultra suede sweet seats in interior listen the seats are very nice they look a lot better and compared to the si they're a massive step up do you think so yes uh visually visually they're also kind of hard on the butt i found yeah and like arguably maybe not quite bolstered enough because the car does have quite a lot of grip it does yeah um but no otherwise they are they're much nicer to look at and to into like the touch points of them are a lot better than the si seats so i don't want to bring up nations because we're already divided but okay as we know the canadian civic si is already blessed with lots of good things we get all the stuff so the stuff this gets is big it's bigger it's a bigger deal for the americans like the heated seats the heated rear seats yeah the steering wheel yeah digital gauge cluster our civic side has digital full digital gauge yeah we get the whole thing on the si so this is less attractive to us than it is to our american brother yeah as a buying proposition yeah um i liked the si's full width um i think i agree with you i think that was a little bit more retro looking this is quite a cheap replacement yeah i i don't i don't know if i really like that yeah like yeah for 43 grand yeah that's some yeah yeah they could have they could have stepped up you know when you i know the according to tlx are different yes but that jump with the center console is quite different and when you go like this it feels like a civic yeah it's still very civic it's still very civic in here it does have the els studio 3d sound system which is dope yeah really really really good um otherwise i don't know it's cool but it's mostly a civic at least in canada it's like very very similar you're basically paying for the sound system and the seats like if you zoom out those are the big things pretty much because you don't get any power upgrades no i think if you know if the cvt just based on our concerns with the manual on this one yeah if the cvt was a dual clutch transmission and you could just do a normal aspect that's where because the civic site is manual only yeah i mean to be fair i haven't driven the cbt in this but i have driven cvts in honda's before and was never impressed at best they're fine they're never sporting no exactly uh other issues that we've got to point out rear seats yeah i i don't even even fit i've got the headroom it's just i'm really 5 foot 10. it's just weird sound man harrison really doesn't fit yeah i don't know listen i like this but i would i will caveat with at least in canada this interior at least is not enough of a step up from the civic si to warrant the cost unless you you really prioritize the sound system unless you're really proud you want the accurate batch but yeah this is still it love like the civic assad was already very good no no that means that everything works entertainment's great climate's great like like ergonomically the things that the things are buttons are buttons it's perfect like there's no i have no issues with this ergonomically as a car but the civic si exists that's the only issue so yeah so take from that what you will but they're both great and potentially more purchasable than things like the golf r which is still a year and a half away and doesn't nail the interior ergonomics the way this does no this is uh this is a much a big step over the current generation of golfs uh should we do a conclusion yeah okay so the new acura integra is a never so slightly more luxurious civic si in its top trim though its luxuries still fall short of similarly priced luxury compacts like the audi a3 or the mercedes cla and its sportiness offers nothing more than a much cheaper civic si and yes as we said national product packaging is the enemy here but if you really are being forced to spend 40 grand on a front-wheel drive honda product our money would probably go towards the much quicker and much loved albeit less nimble and subdued looking 2-liter turbo 10-speed honda accord all this to say with its adaptive dampers fancy sound system and fancy badge the integra is a top-trim civic si which means it's still good but that enters it into a spicy price point where it's more than a little threatened thanks for watching you\n"