A simple premise, brilliantly executed, makes the ITR arguably the best front-wheel-drive car ever



The Honda Integra? An unlikely hero to be sure. But its job description was clear enough. All it had to do was be strong, light, taut, responsive, grippy and controlled enough not to impede the driver’s enjoyment of that four-pot Type-R. And what an engine: 187bhp at 8000rpm, 8400rpm red line, scalp-prickling noise.

The requirement, then, was for a front-drive chassis of exceptional talent. It had one. The Integra R was one of those rare cars that didn’t have to sacrifice control for comfort. Its firmness kept its sticky Bridgestone Potenzas planted to the tarmac but didn’t allow sharp inputs to upset the body’s composure. The Civic Type-R that followed kept the spirit of the Integra alive but not the brilliance of its chassis. Which is why the Integra is the true cult classic.

Back in issue 095, we brought together the 15 greatest front-drive cars of recent times. The Integra was the overall winner. As Meaden concluded, ‘It’s a car as sweet and all-consuming as any I’ve experienced at any price, and as pure and focused in its own way as any Porsche RS. Forget the accolade of greatest front-wheel-drive car. The Integra Type-R ranks as one of the truly great drivers’ cars of any kind.’

 

Four-wheel-drive and four-wheel-steering helps the brutal Skyline make any drive interesting



What we loved about the Skyline R34, the thing that set it apart from other Japanese rocket-sleds (apart from its butch, angular appearance – if a car could grow stubble…) was that it owned one of the most technically sophisticated and absurdly talented four-wheel- drive/steer chassis ever to cling to a twisty road. Never mind that it was called ATTESA E-TS Pro, what mattered was that it put all the drive through the rear wheels until the road conditions dictated that some torque should be directed to the front.

It sounds like a blast and it is. At first, though, it’s unnerving. The R34 has an entirely different feel to a Scooby or an Evo. It feels like an altogether tougher, bigger, heavier car. And those SUPER HICAS four-wheel steering responses appear to be artificially darty. At the same time, other aspects of the package feel curiously old-fashioned: hard-riding, slow-revving, conspicuously turbocharged. But then much of the high-tech hardware is designed to make it feel old-tech simple and honest. The only real disappointment was the rather tacky interior. A warrior-class performer nonetheless with a compelling mixture of raw stonk and PlayStation-esque all-drive chassis wizardry.

 

F40 and the Zonda are my favourite, though I'd take an F40 over the Zonda. The presence of the F40 is like nothing other, when the word supercar comes to my mind I immediately think of the F40.

 

What is a "Veyron"? Give me that Integrale.

 

 

I actually have that magazine.

Personally the F40 and the R34 are my favorites.

 

+1. For me F40 was the first and is the quintessential supercar.

Al great thread!

 

Thanks for posting this Al!

 

F1, Zonda, f40, Veyron, r34

 

Hehe, I laughed when reading the description of the GT3. My 911, and every properly setup one for that matter, has the same front-end bob in corners. It's actually pretty goofy feeling on uphill, decreasing radius hairpins where you're literally watching the pontoon fenders dance in front of you.

It's so tough to pick a favorite from that list. Even the Integra Type-R is totally worthy of being amongst the greatest. At the end of the day, I gotta go with the Zonda. It's got it all and it's got style for days

Thanks for posting Alex, it was a nice treat before Thanksgiving.