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Well, it’s a sad day. The Integra is gone. The ridiculous house prices have forced me to bid farewell to the Integra and downgrade in order to save for a house deposit.

Having said that the car I have now isn’t too much of a downgrade:

It isn’t as focused as the Teg was, and doesn’t quite scream like the wrath of God in the same way when you hit the V-Tec zone, but I suppose it will do.

And on the plus side Mugen and a number of other tuning houses make a load of bits that I can bolt on to make the engine produce the same power output as that of my Teg.

I shall still be wearing a black arm band for the rest of the month however…

Not updated this for a while, but thought that this was definitely worth a post. I got an Integra Type-R!

Bring it on! Will post more pics when I can…

For those of you in the know a link to show that the traditions are continuing in our absence:

www.crowdsafety.org.uk

And Martin’s still getting slagged off for being a fashion victim…

Well, in the last post I complained that the Integra Type-R has yet to reach our shores. Don’t panic though, Honda assure us that there is a new Civic Type-R on the way in 2007.

The American market, however, has never really gone for the Civic hatchback and instead prefers the saloon version, which is why they’ll be getting a saloon version of the Civic Type-R. The concept version of this is called the Civic Si. I think you’ll agree it bares more than a passing resemblance to the new (Euro) Civic hatch crossed with the current Integra coupe:

This seems a little unfair when the American market already has the Acura (Honda) RSX (Integra Type-R) and is soon to get the RSX A-Spec (Type-R with some nicer interior trim and chunkier bodykit for the US muscle car culture as far as I can tell):

So, Honda won’t release the Integra Type-R coupe here because it would compete too much with the Civic Type-R hatchback. But in the States they will market the Honda Civic Si coupe alongside the Acura Honda RSX Integra Type-R coupe alongside the Acura Honda RSX Integra A-Spec Type-R+ coupe.

Go figure…

I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want a Civic Type-R anymore. I want an Integra Type-R instead. Unfortunately the latest model (which has been out since 2001 in the US and Japan) will not be imported into the UK because it competes too much with the Civic. Dammit.

It’s got 220bhp (through the front wheels!) but somehow you can actually drift the back out quite easily.

Just look at that shape compared with the Civic. It’s much more like a proper sports car. And it’s got a proper spoiler!

And what’s this? A gear knob in the proper place instead of on the dashboard? Those crazy Honda engineers!

That interior’s red by the way, not pink. It’s just the crap colour in the photo that I couldn’t be bothered to adjust in Photoshop.

So what’s the damage? Well, imported fresh from Japan they’re around £20k all in, which is around £4k more than the Civic. So to get anywhere near my price bracket I’d be looking at a 4 or 5 year old one. Like this nice one currently on Autotrader.co.uk:

And since they’re import only, high powered and Group 18 insurance I’ll be looking at rather a large insurance bill (£950 a year the cheapest quote so far).

I think I prefer the blue one:

It will be mine.

Oh yes, it will be mine…

I’ve just installed Wordpress 2.0 “Duke”. So if it all goes to hell now you’ll know why.

Not sure what the perma-tanned antiques expert has to do with this release, but I’m sure I’ll take the time to find out eventually…

One job down, and the next one’s in the pipeline waiting to start in a week. Which means I’m technically unemployed until then.

Lie-ins and fry ups all week then. Ah, it’s like being back at Uni…

Although the wind farms in the previous post may be amusing, I think this traffic monitoring experiment is less so.

I’ll be turning my mobile off altogether while driving then.