On March 27, 1986 Acura was launched as the first luxury marque from Japan. Initially, Americans scoffed at the idea. How could the purveyor of $6000 Civic hope to compete with the likes of Saab, Jaguar, or even BMW? Four decades later, Acura has proven it has staying power, and to celebrate its 40th birthday it has built an homage to its very first race car.
Acura sent the Integra racing right out of the gates, establishing its footing in the IMSA RS (Radial Sedan) class in 1986, campaigned by Doug Peterson, one of the founders of early Honda/Acura tuner Comptech.
By 1987 The Comptech-prepped DA3s received official support from Honda, with two Integras competing in the IMSA RS International Sedan Series against the likes of the Mazda 323 and 626, Volkswagen Scirocco, Mercedes 190E, BMW E30, Dodge Daytona and CSX Shelby. The Integra promptly won both the Manufacturers’ Championship and the Drivers’ Championship with Peterson behind the wheel of the No.48 car.
Th
e following year Acura achieved the double title again, winning eight of the series’ ten races that year. There seems to be an error in Acura’s official statement that the “Comptech Integra No. 48 [won] consecutive IMSA International Sedan Series Manufacturers’ and Drivers’ Championships”.
In fact, it was Peterson’s 27-year-old Comptech teammate Parker Johnstone in the No.49 Integra who took the Drivers’ Championship with 182 points, nearly double that of the the second points-holder. Johnstone’s car even graced the cover of the 1988 book The Front-Wheel Driving High-Performance Advantage by Jack Doo, with a foreword by Carroll Shelby.
Johnstone repeated the feat in 1989, bringing home the Integra’s third consecutive Driver Championship. And with Peterson and late-season addition Lance Stewart, the Comptech team took the checkered flag in seven out of ten races and clinched the Manufacturers’ Championship as well, a three-peat.
By 1990 the Comptech team had switched to the second-generation Integra and the NSX had just hit the market. The message had been sent. Acura had come out with guns blazing, fully reigning over IMSA’s International Sedan Series with its inaugural sports coupe.
To honor its accomplishments, Acura built an homage to the car that brought home the marque’s first racing trophy. The car’s D16A1 has been rebuilt, putting power down through a 5-speed manual and Torsen limited-slip diff, but it’s not an exact replica.
The tribute car wears Yokohama Advan A050 semi-slicks, for example, whereas the original would have been fitted with Firestone or BF Goodrich tires over its white Mugen CF-48s. It also rides on Tein coilovers though the original had Bilstein suspension components. Accuracy isn’t the point, though. These are simply what’s available on the market today as opposed to 40 years ago.
Regardless, it’s great to see some light shed on the first-gen Integra, which usually gets overshadowed by its second- and third-gen successors. Not only did it have tremendous success on the track, the DA3 absolutely dominated its IMSA class, and helped the newly minted Acura name plant a flag in the ground announcing its arrival.
Images courtesy of Honda.
