Our Cars: Honda Integra Type R DC2

You might imagine that logical thinking goes out of the one-touch electric window when you allow your heart to convince your head that buying a Honda Integra Type R is the right thing to do.

After all, it’s a relic of the 1990s. A car based on, if we’re being honest, a half-hearted attempt at a cool coupé for cool young things, specifically cool young things in Japan and America. To these eyes at least, the soap-bar body shape has a whiff of pensioner about it. Without the Type R costume jewellery, an Integra looks meek and mild – just the job for a downsizer who wants a ‘nice runaround’ to see out their final years in America’s Sunshine State.

Yet when the Integra Type R DC2 emerged in 1995, it soon became apparent that the unassuming runaround had been transformed into a stubborn bugger of a car. In everyday driving conditions, it made no sense at all. The suspension would thump over every pothole, expansion joint and catseye. The gutless engine felt as though it was a piston short of a full set. (Take a guess at where the peak torque arrived – 7300rpm.) Yet to add insult to injury, short gearing and an absence of sound-proofing meant its monotonous drone would drown out the radio on the motorway, where things would be thrashing away at 4000rpm at 70mph.