Post by Kasey Kagawa

Currently, I’m freezing my ass off in a hotel room in Fortuna, California. My eyes are watering from the residual cigarette smoke in the room and I can’t vent the room out because there’s a trailer with a load of live cattle parked outside my window. Despite all of this, I’m in higher spirits now than I have been for a while. The reason for my mood is sitting out in the parking lot: a 2001 Acura Integra Type R, specifically, my Integra Type R. I purchased it on Thursday in Seattle and I’m halfway through driving it down to Southern California. Today, as a personal test of its dynamic capabilities and as a chance to get to know it more intimately, I drove from Red Butte to my current location on State Route 36, a 140 mile strip of asphalt that contains every type of twist, turn, camber change and elevation shift that you can think of, and it was never anything short of brilliant. In celebration of my new relationship with the Integra Type R, here’s Top Gear’s (yes, YouTube commenters, Top Gear did exist before 2001, and yes, Tiff Needell was on it) review of the then-brand new Honda (nee Acura) Integra Type R.