If Japanese manufactuers are good at anything they are good at creating trends and alternative following. What they did now is they carved up performance FWD small car market and they are banking. CTR was the one that made a breakthrough and everyone else just eased in cause margins were so good. I highly doubt those who want CTR or CGR want Supra, Z, BMW M240i, Mustang, etc. Why? Because it was always like that.
Remember back in a day when you could have had cheaper Mustang, Camaro, Firebird or more powerful Corvette for the same money but you opted for RX7/300ZX/3000GT/Supra instead? Yup, we were riding JDM bandwagon no matter what. C5 or C5 ZO6 did nothing for me, nada. Dodge Viper? Nada. Cobra SVT? Nada, altough I have a soft spot for Cobra R. E36 M3? Yeah that was a joke whenever some zergerman fanboy tried so hard to put M3 into the same line with twin turbo beasts from far east. Vast majority who went for NSX over 911 was because they've never even considered 911 in the first place, all they wanted was alternative. Some gals and dudes were rocking $70,000 ($140,000 todays money) Mitsubishi twin turbo hardtop convertible cause they could and they wanted.
Then came S2000, 350Z, Lancer EVO as the second wave of JDM and the story just repeated itself. Take a look at the current value of Lancer EVO VII/VIII and E46 M3 right now? Tell me who won that fight. Again those who wanted EVO back in the day really didn't think about buying E45 M3 at all. All they thought about was blasting them on the road. Oh and then there was that silly C55 AMG, fun little straight line pocket rocket that couldn't come close to neither M3 nor EVO.
Same story could be told with GT-R and 911. Although there were people who owned both, I know quite a few whos purchage of GT-R was their first ever purchase of $100,000+ car. GT-R was the true successor to NSX when it comes to flaghsip JDM alternative. We can even make a case for RC-F and LC500, it's a poke in the eye to all german vanilla six cylinder twin turbos out there. History repeats itself and it always will.
Manufacturers create hot circles in order to milk them as much as they can and Japanese manufacturers are great at creating cult following. What Acura wants to do here is to position Integra Type S as the king of the current trend small FWD performance cars and they want to milk it like there is no tomorrow. I wish them luck but be sure that some kid right now in his mid 20s will be telling this exact same story twenty lears later from now how he got Integra Type S instead of S3 sedan because he never took S3 into consideration in the first place.
JDM for life!
