Photographed: Provincetown, Massachusetts – August 2017
Wordless Outtake: 1998 Acura Integra GS – When Was The Last Time You Saw A Stock Integra?
– Posted on October 26, 2018
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Curbside Classics Archives
Photographed: Provincetown, Massachusetts – August 2017
I can’t remember ever seeing one. actually.
Almost snorted coffee there. 😛
These and Honda Preludes, and seems like a stock BRZ/FRS are pretty rare these days too.
Back in my high school days (pre-Integra) a friend of mine worked at a local gas station. He always said: “Two things you never see. A Camaro with a stock stereo and a Harley Davidson with a stock exhaust system.”
It seems the most unique Harley would be the one left stock.
That, my friend is THE understatement of the day. Possibly the week. And a very good chance it’s in the running for, the month.
Somewhere, I think there’s a law, where you’re not allowed to own a blockhead (Evo) or later Harley with stock pipes.
(Shovels and earlier get the bye if their restore vintage bikes, where a return to factory spec is actually desirable.)
There’s a white one around town, a base model at that – black door handles and side molding (remember those?) and plastic wheelcovers on steelies. I’ve only ever seen it in the parking lot at work, never with my phone on me.
There are a few stock examples running around our area. I talked to one of the owners, and he’s very fond and protective of his car. No modifications in his vehicle’s future.
A former law partner had two of these in a row, a red one from early in the model run and a green one like this from later. Both were stick shifts. He traded his green one for an Accord coupe with an automatic and had almost instant buyer’s remorse.
It has been awhile since I have seen any of these at all, no matter how equipped.
Last month I saw a 4-dr. Integra of this vintage being driven by an older lady — the car was immaculate.
Until recently, there was a stock GS-R that I’d see parked in an industrial area near my house. Evidently it belonged to the owner of a towing company, however I haven’t seen in in about a year.
Your pictured car is identical to a car a friend of mine bought in 1999 to replace a dilapidated 1985 Celica. What made his purchase noteworthy is that it was a manual transmission car, and he had no idea how to drive a stick. He bought it new from the dealership and another friend of ours drove it home for him, and then the following day I started teaching him how to drive a stick on his brand new car. He picked it up pretty quickly (of course, he had no choice but to learn).
Sweet! My best friend had a ’96 base model in this same color with tan cloth interior; 5-speed manual of course. We were 17 at the time so that car saw ~7,000 rpm a little too often. It was replaced by a silver ’98 with these alloy wheels. Many good memories! I was driving a Ford Escort pony at the time so the two were night and day.
Like Eric703 I’ve seen a few 4 doors of the generation pictured driven by older women. I also see a 4 door E36 M3 locally also driven by an older women, with a personalized plate reading GRANMA M3. I still see stock RSX’s (I came close to buying one before I found the Golf last year, but the title was flaky) but I suspect they’ll fade away over time as the modders take over.
Too rainy and dark to walk around my neighborhood and find the one or two stock ones so I am just going to sit here and drink hot cocoa knowing there are stock Integras out there.
Yesterday, actually. It was a sedan with alloys that looked Factory. I actually asked myself the same question.
My brother in law had a stock one, the low output version, about ten years ago in grad school. Manual transmission. He had to sell it when going out of country for awhile. I should have bought it from him but didn’t have money at the time.
Should have bought a lot of stock that year as well but, again, didn’t have the money.
Should have done a lot of things but didn’t have the money.
https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/classic-cars/a24226421/acura-integra-v8-for-sale/
How about the least stock Integra this side of a junkyard?
The thing that really baffles me is the “no firewall”
For some reason, I feel like stock JDM cars from about the late 80s to the early 2000s will end up becoming really expensive and collectable. Due to the vast majority of them being modified to hell and back, I wouldn’t be surprised if the few stock examples that are rather clean and still function decently will end up becoming an appreciating asset. Cars like these have enough of an enthusiast following also that the people who really love and appreciate these vehicles, will do their best to try and keep them on the road.
I’ve only seen one, maybe two stock Integras of this vintage in the last 2 or so years. Coincidentally, those are the only Integras I recall seeing of this vintage, period.
Clean unmodded Type Rs of this age are already fetching big bucks —
https://jalopnik.com/this-1997-acura-integra-type-r-is-selling-for-44-990-a-1825966236
To add to that, unmodded 100k mile examples of the GS-R sell in the $8k range these days, and that price escalates quickly for one owner examples.
I also wonder how many stock Genesis Coupes still exist. Here in SWFL just every one I see is “stanced” to the nth degree with a bean can exhaust.
“..last time saw a stock…?”
Same with ‘classic’ muscle cars, they were modded heavily in their time. The myth is that Boomers all drove ‘factory correct, numbers matching’ muscle cars in HS/College in 1964-72. But just look up all the old Hot Rod magazines, etc.
Hence, why survivor examples bring huge $$$.
In California where I live they’re still fairly common. Until recently I used to see one parked in front of someone’s house every day on my way to and from work. That one seems to be gone now, but just the other day I saw a previous generation one on the street that looked completely stock.
Last Spring, when I sold the 125k mile, 1990, bone stock car known as “The Unintentional Acura”.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/cars-of-a-lifetime/coal-1990-integra-the-unintentional-acura/
My stepfather had a beautiful stock ’97 in arrest-me-red. It was a 5 speed too! It was bought new, and he kept it for 10 or 11 years. It eventually went to a family member who totaled it shortly after receiving it.
Actually, I’m seeing more stock Integras, Celicas, Eclipses and Preludes than tuned these days. The tuned ones were usually very rough, even years back when the cars weren’t that old. I think the beater tuner crowd used all of those up, and the ones that are left are survivors. Actually, stock, decent or good condition examples of all of these aren’t that hard to spot here in the rusty eastern end of PA. Certainly more common than 4th gen Sevilles, last gen Continentals, Mark VIIs and VIIIs, G20s and Q45s, Maximas/I30/35s, GM H-Bodies, Auroras, Intrigues, and much newer disposables like G6s, G8s, Five Hundreds, and Cloud Cars, regardless of condition.
Maybe we have come full circle on these.
Yeah I see the odd stock Integra about, grossly over rated cars but the boy racers swallow the cool aid then lower and stance any handling Honda did build in out of them.
I actually saw one less than 5 weeks ago. The guy who showed it to me explained that he had got it specifically to flip it and bought it because it was a high performance model, owned by a mature adult, had ALWAYS been maintained at the Acura dealer, and had never been modded.
It was a GS-R sedan, if I remember correctly, and while it was over 20 years old it had less than 110K miles on it.
Oddly, from the outside it just looked like a run-of-the-mill white, 3rd generation, 4 door sedan…aside from the wheels.
BTW, no one mods the Integras with an automatic transmission, it’s kind of pointless.
Up here in the rust belt they mod the automatics. It’s either the lambo door stance guys or hard core drag guys. The stancers don’t go that fast and the drag guys are swapping out the motors anyway. Clean sheetmetal is like gold up here.
My brother in law has one of these in his garage, waiting for a new front clip. He’d upgraded the suspension, replaced the tired old cloth interior with clean leather from a junkyard Integra, and just had it repainted when he rear-ended a Subaru at low speed. He bought it from the insurance company with a salvage title and stuck it in his garage for two years. I helped him get it running again and convinced him to keep it instead of selling it for a Mustang. We’ll see if he listens to my advice or not.
I see a stock Type-R Integra every day at the train station I commute from. It’s just appeared at the station in the last few weeks. I haven’t seen one in the previous 5 years at least. A lot of them seem to have been condemned to the scrapyard with rust issues, or modded to death, making them scarce now.
Where I live these were all grey imports, but they seem to be all gone now – all bought by young hot-shots with more money than driving ability. Any survivors are too valuable to use on the street.
The last stock Integra I ever saw was my own ’90 GS in 2002, shortly before my mom wrecked it. Even then it was a unicorn, and everybody wanted to buy it from me in order to modify it. I loved that car exactly as it was from the factory, but that made me a very small minority. I ended up parting it out after the accident, so it went on to help a few modified Integras stay on the road.
The local bhph car lot has one in fair condition. There’s a near mint one running around where I work too.
A friend of mine bought a 2001 Integra coupe a few years ago for $1000 (Canadian). It had been sitting for a while and had over 200,000 km on the clock. He put new tires and brakes on it, got it running and it passed the Ontario safety and emissions tests without any problems. At present, it needs a new engine computer, but once that’s fixed it’ll be his daily driver again. He also has a 2004 Element that he bought last year (again with over 200,000 km on it) and it’s been serving him quite well. Did I mention that he likes old Hondas? He seems to have a knack for keeping them running and racking up the kilometres.