Performance range-toppers always tend to have memorable names that immediately conjure an image in your mind of the car at hand. The terms “M3”, “RS6”, “Golf R” all provide some reassuring mental feedback as the brain kicks into action and does its thing. Heck, even when the full name is a little bit of a mouthful, such as the Mercedes-Benz AMG A 45 S 4Matic+, us car people can skilfully shorten that to “A45 AMG” and no one becomes lost or confused or irrational.
For some reason, however, Americans seem to shy away from this. My two key examples are the Volkswagen Jetta GLI and the Acura Integra Type-S. Now, I’m not here to criticise either car or Americans, but this whole concept seems to sort of diminish the image both cars are trying to convey. The Jetta GLI uses the mechanical underpinnings of the Golf GTI and puts them in a more practical and mature body style. The Integra Type-S does the same, transplanting the mechanicals of the new FL5-generation Honda Civic Type-R into a more practical and mature body style.
What I struggle with is that very few people refer to the Golf GTI as simply a ‘GTI’. Perhaps 30 years ago you could pull off such a flex, but in 2023 we are eight generations deep in the Golf GTI, we’ve got six generations of Polo GTI and there’s even the Lupo GTI to consider.
Now on the Jetta GLI’s side America does only get the Golf GTI as its sole GTI, so perhaps I’m being obnoxious and inconsiderate, but the GLI name sort of just sounds like a typo or that someone that doesn’t know too much about cars is trying to show off and getting it wrong. It’s like an unwanted brand extension and it just makes things confusing with GLI seemingly like some sort of mutation that Volkswagen have yet to have burned off. It just adds confusion and dilutes VW performance ladder that goes boring to GTI to R.
The Acura is quite similar but a little different. The Civic Type-R has a slight bit more of an image crisis compared to the Golf GTI and ‘Type-R’ isn’t the kind of thing that you can go chatting about in polite society. So, the Type-S makes sense there. A 40-something that wants a FWD compact that goes like the clappers and handles on rails can do so in a self-respectful manner. But again, Type-S sounds just a bit naff. It sounds like the old Civic Type-S we got here in the UK (absolute crap if you must know) or it makes it seem like there’s a hotter Integra Type-R to come later down the line (we can hope).
What the Type-S really brings to light is an American market that has been starved of fast Hondas. The US only received its first official Civic Type-R a generation ago, having previously survived on various Type-S Acuras and SI-branded Hondas.
Maybe this all makes sense to some marketing executive, but way back in the 1990s, the Americans got the Acura Integra Type-R: arguably the greatest fast Honda ever. And not using the Type-R badge ever again is a crying shame.
Kerbside 