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.
Honda North America has completely lost the narrative. Increasingly they have become a purveyor of utterly boring, look alike machines with ZERO sporting pretense. When was the last time you have seen a current generation Civic SI? Since launch I have seen exactly two of them. The streets used to be crawling with Si Civics of one type or another. No longer.
Honda is dead to me now.
– from a former Honda loyalist.
Honda’s really focused on profits being its priority and less so on catering to specific crowds. Or maybe I’m wrong, and that “‘sport’ utility vehicles” are what the public sees as sports cars nowadays. Consider the Acura commercials you see on TV, they’re showing the MDX racing around some CG’d background; that’s what our American definition of “sports car” has become.
Companies are going to have ebbs and flows, and despite Honda’s continued success, I wonder if their PR department have noticed shifts in their consumer base. Perhaps the revenue is still great, but at some point there’s going to be enough public feedback to label Honda / Acura as “boring,” and I think the company will feel the consequences.
This brings up the debate of whether a nameplate should be more identifiable than the brand. Back in the 90s the word Legend had more consumer recognition than Acura, so Honda decided to drop the names of all the Acura vehicles in lieu of three letters. The subsequent decades has shown that this has backfired as most people have no idea what (or who makes) an ADX, MDX, RDX, TLX, ZDX, and now RSX is. This is why they finally decided to revive the Integra name. There was once a time when Honda/Acura had a very clean and distinctive design and vehicle naming language. Todays vehicles just look gimmicky both in design and name.
I think many brands have not only lost clarity in their designations but also identity between models, not only within their own brand but also with their rivals. And what makes a user choose one brand over another?
It needs to be very good indeed for what it is, since it’s launching into an already-saturated market segment. Acura’s selling about as well as it can with *no* electrified models but I’d have prioritized getting some hybrids into the line over a full EV.
Who is this even for? Anyone who cares about the old RSX will disavow this, and anyone shopping for an electric crossover doesn’t care about that nameplate. Honda is now in the same place as the American companies it was competing with in the ’70s – struggling to adapt to new regulations and losing ground to manufacturers better-equipped to deal with the changing market.
Intergra nameplate lived on in ILX model, which even shares chassis code family with current the model.
(written from a phone, wish me luck)
I have beef with so much about this and I agree with most comments here, but here is my take.
RSX only means something to those who were teenagers when these came out and to forget RSX owners. To everyone else, it is just another alphabet soup car. Acura had such recognition in the near luxury market that the Legend name was more well known than Acura? But instead of working up from this, they torpedoed their names and became unnameable. What car is this? Oh, an X-Something…
I have not cross shopped Honda since the last year of the second gen Fit, but except the Accord, nothing turns me on in their lineup, but I get that I am not their target customer.
finally, about then being out of touch with the enthusiasts, I can’t speak for other countries but over here, they are expensive and have poor financing so you either really want one, like an enthusiast, or you pay cash. Let’s say Subaru are way more common, even Mazda and I often see ten Toyotas for one Honda. In my market, I actually am surprised that Nissan is playing with death instead of Honda.
Anyway, here comes a car to join the Eclipse Cross!
I just don’t understand.