Acura has revealed its new RSX prototype, and it’s a big electric crossover. If this was five years ago we may have some reserve of anger left, but it’s 2025. We’ve suffered too many rug-pulls from automakers promising the return of a cherished nameplate while all the while knowing they’d deliver nothing like the original. We no longer feel outrage, just numbness.
The original RSX was a successor to the third-generation Integra. It was still called the Honda Integra in Japan, but Acura was switching over to alphanumeric names at the time. It also signaled what many consider to be Honda’s long downward slide to irrelevance with enthusiasts. Like the EP Honda Civic of the same era, the RSX saw Honda abandon its Formula 1-derived double-wishbone suspension for a MacPherson strut setup.
To be fair the RSX still exhibited Honda’s razor sharp-handling, made shifting gears a joy, and a sported a 200-horsepower engine that propelled it from 0-60 in the low sixes. But it was to be the last Integra until 2021. And with each passing year after its discontinuation, Honda seemed to get further and further away from the Tuner Era ethos that spawned legions of fans willing to name their first borns VTEC.
Four years ago the Integra revival got us excited. And while the car ended up being largely a more expensive Civic Type R, it at least possessed legitimate performance chops and was the same general body shape as its namesake. Honda even tried to evoke the tuner culture that its ancestors were once synonymous with.
Then came the Prelude, which has yet to be released in production form. Another treasured nameplate, but more a Civic Hybrid coupe than a true successor to a flagship sports coupe that could slice a mountain road like a ginsu though whip cream. The new one won’t even come in stick. But again, same general form.
How Honda is dropping all pretenses on a body style that’s not even in the same zip code. The funny part is, the letters RSX probably don’t mean a whole lot to non-enthusiasts, as they weren’t around long enough to earn the cultural cachet that Integra and Prelude had. So why reuse them? It could be the best electric crossover on Earth, but it’s not an RSX.
The cruel ironies keep on coming. This prototype not only comes with Brembo brakes and 21-inch wheels, things tuners once paid top dollar for, but now the RSX does have a double-wishbone suspension, which tuners couldn’t have at any price. Like the 2002-06 RSX and Integra, the new RSX will be built on the same assembly line as the Integra too, except those were the same car and now the assembly line is in Ohio. And the new RSX somehow manages to exhume and defile a second beloved name, that of Honda’s adorable robot, by naming its suite of infotainment and driver assistance systems “Asimo OS”.
Unlike the ZDX, another revived nameplate but one that we can’t be bothered to get upset about, the RSX has no GM content. It’s all Honda this time around. The RSX debuts August 15 at, unaccountably, The Quail during Monterey Car Week, a showcase of classic cars that twist the heartstrings of car enthusiasts. This is an event that will have cars like the Ferrari F50, 1965 Shelby GT350 and Toyota 2000GT. It seems within the realm of possibility that one day an original RSX Type S or DC5 Integra Type R could grace the lawn at this prestigious gathering. But this RSX? This reveal will probably be its only chance.
Images courtesy of Acura.
