Your first look at the new Honda Integra

The new car is intended as a gateway vehicle to the Acura brand, which in the US is the more premium arm of Honda. While it is called Prototype, this is very much 95 per cent of what US buyers will be seeing in showrooms next year. When it does arrive on sale, American buyers will be able to pick it up from $30,000, or £22,000 at today’s exchange rate. Not bad...

Moving with the times, it looks like the Integra is moving away from the unashamed coupe format, to a fastback/coupe hatch style. Think of it as splitting the difference between the Mercedes A-Class and the CLA. In spite of the change, the mission statement for the Integra rings familiar: to be a boon for driving enthusiasts. 

This prototype uses a 1.5-litre VTEC turbo engine that Acura describes as ‘high output’, connected to a six-speed manual transmission. A similar motor can be found in the new US market Civic Si producing just over 200PS (147kW). Indeed, much of this car’s underpinning will be based on the new Civic, which leaves the door very much open for a 300PS-plus Type R variant – the Type R is what everyone remembers when thinking about the Integra. There’s no official mention of it yet, but with the Civic Type R set to return imminently the world over, a Type R Teg’ is all but a sure thing.

What will divide fans is the looks. On the one hand, it’s quite a handsome thing, with familiar Honda and Integra sharp-suited styling language, washed back for the coupe-hatch formula. On the other, we’re 16 years on from the last Integra and as such that name and this styling language, which at this point is totally alien to what’s gone before, doesn’t quite gel. What made the original Integra a legend was how good it was, not the looks. So if this car follows suit, there will be no problems. We just wish the market still allowed proper coupes…

The final question. Will it come to the UK? Nothing’s been said but we’ll hold out hope until we’re told not to.