I Sure Hope Acura Isn’t Foolish Enough To Cancel The Integra Again

One of the hardest tricks in business is to know when to persist, when to adapt, and when to move on. I was at eBay’s big 30th Anniversary pop-up store in SoHo last night for a VIP event. Sarah Michelle Gellar was there, seemingly doing some promo work ahead of the revival of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It was probably right for that series to find its end when it did, and it’s also probably the right time to bring it back now.

You know what was a harder call? Everything on display was from the mid-90s, which means they had one of the Kenner Luke Skywalker dolls on display. I didn’t know the story of this doll, but I think it’s worth reviewing this morning. Essentially, Star Wars as a franchise had done little new since Return of the Jedi. This meant that there was no obvious reason to put out merchandise. However, VHS sales were still high, and every parent was showing every kid the original Star Wars trilogy. The toy brand Kenner, having been recently purchased by Hasbro, decided it didn’t really need a new movie and started producing more action figures. They were a hit, and now we have a lot more Star Wars stuff.

The Acura Integra was an obvious home run for Acura when it came out, and it remains one of the most iconic and popular names for the brand. What did Acura do with its popular name? Dropped it for alphanumerics and then got rid of the car altogether. The Integra is back, and it’s good, although it probably should have been a coupe. Now it sounds like Acura might go all-crossover, which seems foolish to me.

Less foolish to me is the resurgence of Ford Racing. That seems like a thing that should happen. Additionally, I’m supportive of the return of the European car show and of Europe in general. The only one who seems to be going backwards is BYD, which is revising its own sales down, which seems smart to me.

An All-Crossover Acura Sucks, But I Have A Solution

Do you want to see a truly hilarious graphic from Honda/Acura:

YTD, Acura car sales are down 19.6% and “truck” sales are up 10.7%. In August, car sales were up 8.8%, and “truck” sales were down 11.8%. This is just one month, and a weird month at that, with some hangover from MDX factory retooling. Also, Acura picked the absolute wrong time for a “model year sell-down” for the ZDX before the arrival of the 2026 ZDX, given that the tax credit is about to expire.

I have some questions about how Honda and GM dealt with the fact that the tax credit was suddenly expiring, and both needed as much inventory as possible to shove into customers’ hands. Will those questions ever be answered? Maybe not!

Either way, the general trend is that people aren’t buying Acura’s two existing cars (the very good Integra and totally fine Acura TLX), but are buying their “trucks.” For reasons probably having to do with discounting, the TLX actually sold quite well in August, while the Integra didn’t.

The problem with the trucks, though, is that none of them are hybrid, and all of them should be hybrid. Honda’s logic in designing a hybrid system that works for vehicles sized from Civic to CR-V, but not for bigger vehicles, maybe makes sense? Perhaps the idea was that EVs would fill a lot of that gap, so why make a hybrid?

According to this Automotive News article about Acura’s pivot, there was a lot of that kind of thinking rolling around:

While the Japanese automaker has a long history in hybrids, developing and introducing new electrified powertrains takes time, American Honda CEO Kazuhiro Takizawa told reporters during an August briefing in Monterey, Calif.

“When you change the powertrain and the crash test, we have to start from scratch,” Takizawa said. “We usually need four years or more to have the new vehicle, so it’s lead time we need to secure.”

Takizawa declined to comment on what models the automaker was targeting for hybrid drivetrains. But the RDX crossover, due for a redesign in 2028, is a good candidate, given the potential development timeline.

It was initially thought that the recently debuted RSX electric crossover would serve as a replacement for the RDX since they are similarly sized, but now it seems likely the two will coexist until the market is more accepting of electric vehicles, making a hybrid addition more appealing.

It looks like the big Honda hybrids aren’t coming until 2028 at the earliest. Worse, though, is that the company is probably shuffling off both the TLX and the Integra:

Acura also announced the end of production of its TLX sedan, leaving the Integra as the sole option for the shrinking set of buyers looking outside crossovers. But with the Integra’s expected discontinuation in 2028, Acura will join the ranks of crossover-exclusive premium brands such as Lincoln and Buick.

While an electric NSX was previously expected to arrive in 2027 or 2028, the revised near-term product roadmap no longer includes a placeholder for the halo sports car. Nevertheless, at the Monterey briefing, Katsushi Inoue, American Honda’s director and senior managing executive officer, said executives fully understand the importance of the nameplate and are “just postponing it.”

Cancelling the Integra the first time was a mistake, which is probably why Acura brought the name back. Toyota is making cars work (Camry sales were up a lot in August), as are Kia and Hyundai. Cars can sell, and they can also be an affordable way into a brand (plus their sales can stand up to spikes in fuel prices). Make more cars! Building the success of your company on the back of a car like the Integra, killing it, and then bringing it back only to kill it again is terrible for loyalty. While I like the current Integra, it’s not going to be a huge volume seller (even though it is essentially the halo model for the brand).

I get that crash-testing and development are a pain, though, so can I make a suggestion? Or, rather, can I just take a prior complaint and turn it into a suggestion? The 2026 Honda Prelude seems awesome, and it’s also probably going to be a little too expensive, for tariff reasons, on top of being a smaller-run/more niche vehicle. A good solution to that might just be dropping an Acura badge and a slight rework of the nose onto the Prelude.

It should be easier to develop, it returns the Integra to its roots, and it gives the brand a high-MPG, attractive, sporty halo car until the new NSX arrives in 20 years or whatever actually happens. This is a layup, Acura. Do it!

Ford Racing Is Back!

For a company that doesn’t make many cars (i.e. not SUVs/trucks), Ford sure is into racing. Some of this likely comes from CEO Jim Farley’s predilections (having been to his garage in Monterey, the dude sincerely loves racing). As far as car-exec sidequests go, it could be worse.

The Ford family loves racing, too, and so Henry Ford’s great-great-grandson Will Ford is going to take over a newly-formed organization called Ford Racing that will combine all of the company’s customer and professional racing pieces. From Ford’s big mission statement:

Under one global Ford Racing banner, our engineers and designers will develop our performance road cars right alongside our race cars. The technology that survives the Baja 1000 will be in the DNA of the next F-150 Raptor. The aerodynamic lessons we learn at Daytona and Le Mans will be sculpted into the body of the next Mustang.

This is a direct line from the track to your driveway, and it starts now. The first production vehicle born from this new Ford Racing mindset will debut this January.

This is about more than just the machines. It’s about the experience. Our racing schools and the Bronco Off-Roadeo are not side projects; they are a core part of our mission. They are where we prove that the capabilities we engineer on the track and on the trail are real, and where we share that excitement directly with you.

Can I get a hell yeah? Hell yeah!

Munich Is Back,  Too!

Sorry for channeling my inner-Upton Sinclair here, but today is worthy of a lot of exclamation points! Even before the pandemic, the general malaise of the European car industry meant that car shows were slowly becoming non-events. The two big European shows were once the Geneva Motor Show and Frankfurt (aka the IAA Mobility show). Geneva is moving to Qatar, for some reason, and IAA has moved to Munich.

I’m Bavarian, so I am highly supportive of this decision (better airport, too), but it didn’t matter so much at the time. I’d argue it matters a lot now. The inevitable outcome of both America and China being less reliable trading partners is that Germany has to stand on its own, and while I’m generally supportive of global cooperation, crisis precipitates change, and the industry needs to change.

Here’s Manager Magazin on the improved vibes:

“The trade fair, like the entire industry, had to be transformed. The experience aspect must be the focus today,” says industry expert Bratzel. Now things are looking up again. In 2023, the association counted around 100,000 people at the Open Space in the city center alone on the Saturday of the fair; this year, this area will be 20 percent larger. There’s a bike path and light shows; a Munich radio station is hosting a band competition.

The exhibition halls are also expected to be busier again. After all, European exhibitors are back and want to make their presence felt at Europe’s most important auto show – even in the face of growing competition from China. “It’s extremely difficult for European manufacturers to even gain visibility in China,” says Bratzel. “It’s similar in the US.” Recently, the Stellantis brands Peugeot, Fiat, and Opel have also been struggling with declining sales figures in Europe. The trade fair is regaining importance as a marketing platform – even though several manufacturers are cutting their marketing budgets.

And the Chinese are gaining ground, even at the show. By 2023, the share of Chinese automakers had already doubled compared to the previous edition; BYD made its debut in the exhibition halls with a stand as large as Volkswagen’s. This year, the Chinese share will be even higher.

China is coming. America is wild right now. Get going, Germany!

BYD Is Backing Off A Bit!

This was inevitable. BYD set a humongous sales goal for itself, but the problem with a goal like that is that you might slowly destroy yourself trying to achieve it. We call this a pyrrhic victory, like when you allow your closer to throw a bunch of pitches to win one game, and he blows out his arm before the playoffs…

BYD’s tactics included some reasonable ones, like the continued discounting of new models. It also involved the company doing some more questionable things, like selling a bunch of zero-mileage used cars. The Chinese government cracked down on automaker juicing habits, and now BYD seems to be trying to respond to both the oversight and the general slowing of the larger market.

For most of the year, the expectation was 5.5 million car sales, but that’s dropped to closer to 4.6 million according to the latest report. Here’s what Reuters has on the moves:

The latest target, which has not been previously reported, is below several recently lowered forecasts from analysts. This week Deutsche Bank said it expected BYD to sell 4.7 million vehicles while Morningstar said it expected 4.8 million.

The new target represents a 7% increase from last year and would be the slowest annual growth since 2020, when sales fell by 7%.

The pared-back outlook also speaks to the deflationary pressure weighing on the world’s second-largest economy, where domestic demand has been hit by a prolonged housing downturn. In the first eight months of this year, BYD has only met some 52% of its original 5.5 million vehicle sales target.

That’s still probably enough to beat Tesla, if anyone cares.

What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD

I suppose the version of “Istanbul (not Constantinople)” I should use is the They Might Be Giants cover, as that’s the only version I’d ever heard. I heard the original this weekend, and I quite like it. Please enjoy The Four Lads.

The Big Question:

What’s the best Ford race car of all time, and why is it the Tommy Kendall All Sport Roush Trans-Am Mustang?

Top Photo: Acura