Honda Integra Headlights question

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Why do Honda Integras have different headlight styles in Japan and the US?
Japanese market Integras had more conventional 'square' headlights where as everywhere else got the four round ones. Apparently it was set to have round lights in Japan too but they were unpopular there so quickly changed to something closer to the rest of the Honda range.
 
Japanese market Integras had more conventional 'square' headlights where as everywhere else got the four round ones. Apparently it was set to have round lights in Japan too but they were unpopular there so quickly changed to something closer to the rest of the Honda range.
I remember reading something like that somewhere. Thank you for the confirmation.
 
Japanese market Integras had more conventional 'square' headlights where as everywhere else got the four round ones. Apparently it was set to have round lights in Japan too but they were unpopular there so quickly changed to something closer to the rest of the Honda range.

Personally I think both styles of eyes are beautiful.
 
Personally I think both styles of eyes are beautiful.
Yeah, both sets look equally nice to me. We got both styles in the UK. Official UK market ones with four rounds and seemingly just as many Japanese imports, due to it being a RHD market. You are as likely to see one as you are the other over here. A neighbour had a import one about 10 years ago now. Wish i'd made him an offer on it now :/
 
Was the DC5 unpopular?

When I had first seen the "RSX" I thought it was a nice looking car. Later I found out from GT4 that it was really the Integra with a different name. I will never understand why car companies do this. I mean the LFA should have been under the Toyota name instead of Lexus.

I wonder if an RHD LFA exists.
 
I like it too.

Never had a chance to drive one in real life, but in NFS Underground (the first one) the car has excellent acceleration.

The acceleration was fine. The adequate acceleration was exciting because the engine screams at the top and vtec kicks in yo. What I liked about it was that the car handled well, was small, but was actually quite practical. Complaints about the Type-S for me were grabby brakes (I think that was true in the base trim as well), torque steer, and (fairly mild) understeer. The earlier ITR fixes all of those things, with the possible exception of brakes still being a tad too grabby.
 
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My only gripe with the DC2 design is the somewhat awkward way the front bumper and front fenders meet on the 4-eye cars. The JDM front end is a lot better resolved and sleek...which is interesting because it was not the original design.

usdm.JPG


jdm.JPG
 
My only gripe with the DC2 design is the somewhat awkward way the front bumper and front fenders meet on the 4-eye cars. The JDM front end is a lot better resolved and sleek...which is interesting because it was not the original design.

View attachment 1226439

View attachment 1226440

The front bumper and the hood meet with some kind of rubber the ends up making it look like a panel gap. I've seen people comment on photos thinking that a car had been in an accident and not repaired well, but it's factory.

e6249d27e8eee1a1c943479d68feb7d5.jpg

huseyinerturk-integra-1631636495.jpg
 
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Was the DC5 unpopular?
I’m not sure about the model in general, but the DC5 Integra Type R didn’t sell as well as the DC2 Integra Type R. I don’t know how Acura RSX Type S sales compared.
When I had first seen the "RSX" I thought it was a nice looking car. Later I found out from GT4 that it was really the Integra with a different name. I will never understand why car companies do this.
Market differentiation. It’s based on the idea that some demographics will respond better to certain looks and names than other demographics would. It does seem a bit silly, but there must be a degree of truth to it.
I mean the LFA should have been under the Toyota name instead of Lexus.
Why? Lexus is Toyota’s sister brand for more luxurious cars globally. I guess the LFA was deemed more luxurious than outright supercar. They could have made it less stylish and applied the Toyota badge, but it would have been odd as the LFA arrived during a time where there was no 86 and Supra in the lineup. Back then Toyota was all about catering to boredom, but then GR was founded a few years later to stir up this image.
 
I’m not sure about the model in general, but the DC5 Integra Type R didn’t sell as well as the DC2 Integra Type R. I don’t know how Acura RSX Type S sales compared.

Market differentiation. It’s based on the idea that some demographics will respond better to certain looks and names than other demographics would. It does seem a bit silly, but there must be a degree of truth to it.

Why? Lexus is Toyota’s sister brand for more luxurious cars globally. I guess the LFA was deemed more luxurious than outright supercar. They could have made it less stylish and applied the Toyota badge, but it would have been odd as the LFA arrived during a time where there was no 86 and Supra in the lineup. Back then Toyota was all about catering to boredom, but then GR was founded a few years later to stir up this image.
You hit it. For the Integra/RSX in particular, it's a little easier to explain - I think.

Honda was introduced to the North American market as a brand that sold very cheap cars and motorcycles during an era of economic malaise and high inflation. With the booming economy of the 80s, they needed/wanted a way to capture the more spendy end of the market but probably couldn't do that with a brand so well known for cheap as Honda, and so they created Acura to sell more expensive cars in a similar move to what Toyota did with Lexus and Nissan did with Infiniti. The North American market is different than the rest of the world because North Americans tend to have more disposable income after taxes and so premium car sales are a huge chunk of the automotive market - and Americans are very choosy about brands, due to it being a fairly materialistic and competitive culture.

As far as I know, outside of Russia & Ukraine, the Acura nameplate has never been sold in Europe, and it's never been sold in Japan. In North America, Acura switched from a word-based naming system (Legend, Integra, Vigor) to an acronym-based naming system (RSX, TSX, TL) starting in the late 90s as a way, I suspect, to better compete with the German companies (as well as Lexus) that had been doing this for some time. I don't know for sure, but I suspect market research led Honda/Acura to believe that these character-based model names were perceived as the premium trend. So while Honda could sell the Integra under the Honda badge as Integra in most markets, in the US, as it was sold under the premium Acura badge it needed to conform to these new standards, hence RSX. After a pretty mediocre run by the RSX's successor (the ILX), I think Acura is trying to capture some kind of nostalgia and brand affinity for the old Acura by returning to the Integra nameplate. Most of this is assumptions, but I'd like to think it's pretty accurate.
 
(Legend, Integra, Vigor)

You make me wonder what the NSX would have been named if they'd gone with word-based naming. Maybe like "Opus" (I'm thinking of the Prelude here). Divinity maybe. Champion. Valor. Or just go right on the nose and call it the Virtue.
 
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Acura switched to alphabet soup names because Honda was annoyed that people thought of the "Integra" and "Legend" first and their association with Acura (a brand entirely selling rebadged Hondas to that point) second.




Since the sales of the Legend basically vaporized after Honda did this but sales of the Integra/RSX and Vigor/TL stayed about the same, it's open to interpretation how good of an idea this was. The RSX in fact was probably about as much of a success as it could have been considering it exactly the wrong product at the wrong time (paring down the range to only a coupe immediately after the bottom fell out on the coupe market and Honda was actually getting serious competition in the sport compact market but put out watered down successors to their late 90s hits in the segment).
 
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You make me wonder what the NSX would have been named if they'd gone with word-based naming. Maybe like "Opus" (I'm thinking of the Prelude here). Divinity maybe. Champion. Valor. Or just go right on the nose and call it the Virtue.
Well, the NSX had some form of acronym type name as far back as 1984. If anything, Acura changed it's entire brand in the image of the NSX. Opus is a great name for a halo product though.
 
Speaking of the Acura brand, PD doesn't seem to know what region (US or Japan) they want it under. It has switched at least twice I think being under the US in GT3. In GT6 it is under Japan. A shame it is too. That is a loophole to drive re-branded Japanese cars in certain US racing events.

Fortunately for GT 2/3/4 there are codes to bypass all regulations and drive any car in any event. I wish someone could make that for GT5 & GT6.
 
Japanese market Integras had more conventional 'square' headlights where as everywhere else got the four round ones. Apparently it was set to have round lights in Japan too but they were unpopular there so quickly changed to something closer to the rest of the Honda range.
From what I understand, even Japan got the quad lights for the first couple years or so before public opinion demanded something resembling the previous generation.

Both look cool to me in their own ways, although I will say that since the long-light style wasn't sold in the US, the few times I've seen one in person I assumed it was a 5th gen Accord at first glance.

1996_honda_accord_coupe_ex_fq_oem_1_500.jpg
 
From what I understand, even Japan got the quad lights for the first couple years or so before public opinion demanded something resembling the previous generation.
Yup.



Personally never liked the bug eyed Integra, especially next to the facelift which was far more attractive in my opinion.
 
the round lights look dated in a bad way, the square lights look dated in a good way

Pre-facelift, definitely.

1994_acura_integra_img_8856-09056.jpg



Post-facelift, it was smoothed out a bit and looks much better imo:

5aec7a64849b0_1a03.jpeg
They all look good. Eyes come in different shapes and sizes. Just because people in some areas have different ones doesn't mean that they're any less attractive.

For the record, I like the RSX eyes as well. All of it looks so much more attractive than this mess:

2021_76.png
 
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They all look good. Eyes come in different shapes and sizes. Just because people in some areas have different ones doesn't mean that they're any less attractive.

For the record, I like the RSX eyes as well. All of it looks so much more attractive than this mess:

2021_76.png
Well the FK8 is an abomination.
 
Why do Honda Integras have different headlight styles in Japan and the US?
The bug eye Integra was released in Japan, but quickly replaced. I have read the main reason was it being unpopular, and snow piling up and blocking the headlights.
 
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