This Acura Integra has been customized to the point where it’s basically undrivable.
What made the Acura Integra such an incredible car was its near-legendary handling. Thanks to a limited-slip differential and a double-wishbone rear suspension, you could hurl this car around corners that would make most other cars of the era balk. Or worse, crash. It wasn’t exceptionally fast, but it didn’t need to be in order to outmaneuver anything else at its price point.
And now somebody has taken a perfectly good 1999 Integra and ruined it.
We have Jalopnik to thank for digging up this abomination, now for sale at Classiccars.com. What started life as a perfectly fine 1999 Acura Integra has been modified so heavily that it’s barely recognizable as the sublimely maneuverable import that it once was.
On the inside, anyway. On the outside, the car still mostly resembles an Integra. Sure, it has a widebody kit on, and a pair of fancy looking exhaust pipes out the rear, but all in all, it still looks like an Integra.
Until you pop the hood and notice there’s no engine there anymore. It’s been moved to the back, where it replaces the entire rear portion of the original vehicle. And it’s been replaced by an 8.2-L V8 from a Chevrolet Eldorado.
It’s not a stock ‘70s-era V8 either. It’s been given a pair of 65mm turbochargers, a 950 CFM carburetor, and twin intercoolers as well. But it does come with the Eldorado’s ancient 3-speed automatic transmission instead of the Integra’s 4-speed auto.
Worst of all, whatever gearhead made this poor Integra into their personal project decided to gut the car’s handling by removing the double-wishbone suspension. In its place is the suspension of the Eldorado. And the subframe, and the Eldorado’s transaxle mount, because the Eldorado was a front-wheel-drive car originally.
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To say that grafting half a ton’s worth of V8 and ‘70s land-yacht car to the back of an Integra is bad for its handling is a bit of an understatement. According to the Streetside Classics sales manager, the car drives “horrendously.”
Also, there’s no firewall between the driver and the engine. Those twin-turbos are right beside the driver’s head, pumping all that heat and noise straight into the cabin. You need to wear earmuffs just to drive this thing.
It’s a horrible monster, and it can be yours for $27,995. Honestly, the best you could do for this car is take it out back and shoot it to put it out of its misery.