An emperor's everyday car and Honda's first VTEC engine
For decades Japan's Emperor Akihito kept a modest grey 1991 Honda Integra saloon and drove it himself around the Imperial Palace grounds, giving up the wheel only after turning 85. The same model line, a sportier cousin of the Civic, had just debuted Honda's first VTEC engine and would later spawn a celebrated front-wheel-drive Type R.
The Integra arrived in Japan in February 1985 as an upmarket, sport-leaning spin-off of the Civic, replacing a car called the Quint. A year later it helped launch Acura, Honda's new American luxury brand, alongside the larger Legend. Its headline feature was the engine: a 1.6-litre twin-cam unit with sixteen valves, rare in an entry-level car at the time. Honda also fitted bigger disc brakes on all four wheels, retuned the suspension and gave it pop-up headlamps. About 228,000 first-generation cars were sold, mostly in the United States.
Europe got a thinner deal. Most buyers there could only order a five-door with a 1.5-litre carburettor engine and no electric windows, central locking or air conditioning, which left it behind rivals from Peugeot and Renault. Magazines still praised its looks and road manners, but it never won over European buyers the way it did Americans.
The second generation, from April 1989, introduced Honda's first variable valve-timing engine, the B16A, which switched to a more aggressive cam profile at 5,500 rpm and revved to 8,200. The best-equipped Japanese version reached 100 kilometres per hour in 7.2 seconds. Cars sold at home were made slightly narrower so they would qualify as compacts and avoid higher annual tax. The four-door, styled like a frameless hardtop, is the version the emperor drove.
The third generation of 1993 brought a four-lamp face that fans nicknamed spider eyes. Japanese buyers disliked it enough that Honda swapped in conventional headlights within about a year. In 1995 came the Type R, now widely rated among the finest front-wheel-drive cars ever made. The name lapsed in 2006, then returned in 2021 on Civic-based models for China and North America.
Source: Honda Integra
