Test: You Can Feel the 1994 Acura Integra LS in Your Fingertips
tags:From the June 1994 issue of Car and Driver.
It's not hard to overlook the Acura Integra LS sedan in the parking lot. Once you’ve become accustomed to the new model’s tiny headlamps—which takes about two days—the car assumes arather modest position in the automotive firmament. Its compact dimensions, tidy but unexceptional styling, and familiar format virtually disappear in a sea of similar vehicles. If Acura stylists thought those four tiny eyes would make the Integra’s deadpan guppy face pop into the public’s consciousness, they were, we think, wrong.
But plop yourself onto the pared-down frame of the driver’s seat, buckle up, and drive off and the car’s real virtues seep relentlessly through the fingertips, the seat of the pants, and the soles of the feet, steadily infiltrating your mind with subtle but unequivocal messages of quality. Signals from your right foot (confirmed by your ears) tell you right away that throttle response is crisp and that the engine revs lustily to a redline just short of 7000 rpm. Your hands conduct steering that is smooth, precise, and—thanks to Honda’s torque-sensing rotary-valve assistance—naturally weighted.
The right hand soon understands that the shifter has short, exact throws with emphatic mechanical engagements and that it operates with the deliberate precision you’d find in a Porsche 968. The hand celebrates this discovery with your left foot, as that foot makes light work of the clutch, and with the right foot, which summons just the right amount of engine response for perfectly timed gearshifts.
Your eyes appreciate the low cowl and the good view it provides. They like the height and the clarity of the big gauges too, particularly at night, when the lighting bathes the deeply recessed binnacle with a warm glow. The even spread of light from the projector-type low beams is also welcome, though the high beams censor your vision down the road with their unambitious reach. Your ears, meanwhile, are being massaged by the pleasant resonances of a hardworking multivalve four-cylinder symphony. You remember that Saturn engineers tried to copy it and that plagiarism is the sincerest flattery.
As the stimuli blend into a tide of sensation, you begin to understand that a combination of soft springing, firm damping, and a stiff structure enables the car to ride smoothly, to filter the sound and impact of most surface imperfections in a way that belies the car's size and weight. With less stringent body-motion control than Acura’s sportier GS-R has, the LS is softer, with more roll, but its ride holds more appeal on a long-distance trip.
Because the essential communication between mechanicals and driver are left largely intact, speed does not fool the senses in this car. Anyway, the speedometer is just a flick of an eye off the road ahead. You know you’re going fast, but the control feedback reassures you that the car is tracking straight and true, answering the wheel with a steady honesty, ready to slow quickly in response to pressure on the firm and readable brake pedal. So you exploit the car’s tautly woven control relationships to make it run fast, certain even before you begin cornering that the car will turn in obediently and that it will cling faithfully to your line.
Considering the unexceptional size of its tires, the Integra’s grip is generous, allowing 0.82 g of lateral acceleration. And despite the softish ride and suburban four-door sedan persona, the car hangs in well when hustled along beyond the call of its likely mission statement. The competence of its control-arm suspension geometry, progressive shock valving, and low-slung, wide-tracked stance underpin the sport component of the small Acura's sport-luxury appellation.
In a product as well rounded as this one, the marketing challenge must be to find a feature that rises prominently above the rest. Aside from the reputation, the resale value, the performance, and the subtle sensuality of the Integra, only the small headlamps really make it into that category, and then not with much effect. Fortunately, the rest of the car is a class act.
Specifications
Specifications
1994 Acura Integra LS
Vehicle Type: front-engine, front-wheel-drive, 5-passenger, 4-door sedan
PRICE
Base/As Tested: $17,815/$17,815
ENGINE
DOHC 16-valve inline-4, aluminum block and head, port fuel injection
Displacement: 112 in3, 1834 cm3
Power (SAE net): 142 hp @ 6300 rpm
TRANSMISSION
5-speed manual
DIMENSIONS
Wheelbase: 103.1 in
Length: 178.1 in
Curb Weight: 2657 lb
C/D TEST RESULTS
60 mph: 7.6 sec
1/4-Mile: 16.0 sec @ 87 mph
100 mph: 22.8 sec
Rolling Start, 5–60 mph: 8.1 sec
Top Speed (drag ltd): 126 mph
Braking, 70–0 mph: 182 ft
Roadholding, 300-ft Skidpad: 0.82 g
C/D FUEL ECONOMY
Observed: 28 mpg
EPA FUEL ECONOMY
City: 31 mpg
C/D TESTING EXPLAINED