If you missed it, the reason is kind of in the ad’s title.

Six days before the Bring A Trailer listing for a 2000 Acura Integra with 7,000 miles is over, it’s already unofficially broken the record for highest bid for a Type R achieved at auction.

The previous record is held by a 1997 Acura Integra Type R with 6,000 miles that sold for $82,000 back in 2019.

But, why are people willing to spend six figures on a 2000 Acura Integra Type R, a Japanese import that, at the crank, makes less than 200 HP?

The biggest reason is supply and demand.

Supply

Acura only sold about 3,800 Acura Integra Type R’s between 1997-2001 in the United States.

This 2000 Acura Integra Type R in Phoenix Yellow is a unicorn and represents a small and diminishing pool of Acura Integra Type R’s with less than 10,000 miles that are coming out of the wood works, ready to cash in on high demand.

Since they are driver’s cars, Integra Type R’s have been driven (hard,) crashed, stolen, stripped, and salvage titled. Only a handful of original owners had the foresight to buy and park a Type R and then buy an Integra GS-R as a daily driver, knowing these Type R’s would appreciate.

A pristine and low-mileage Acura Integra Type R like this does NOT come around often, as evidenced by the previous record holder Type R that popped up three years ago.

The chance to buy and own a low mileage example like this one is almost close to impossible.

Demand

Rad era cars have been growing in popularity over the past decade and have yet to reach peak popularity in the used car market. As far as great cars of the ’90s, it’s been rehashed ad nauseam, but the Integra Type R lives up to the hype. If you don’t get it by now, then you never will.

Demand for a clean, low-mileage example is super high, as evidenced by the fast level of bidding this auction’s taken on. Here’s how quickly the bids progressed in the last 24 Hs.

  • 5:22 A.M.- $100 bid placed by psilla69
  • 5:23 A.M.- $5,000 bid placed by Realsuperman2006
  • 5:25 A.M.- $25,000 bid placed by Bg3948
  • 5:25 A.M.- $28,000 bid placed by pwrful4
  • 5:30 A.M- $30,000 bid placed by evo1003
  • 9:26 A.M.- $90,000 bid placed by grp09
  • 12:05 P.M.-$101,000 bid placed by Trifecta123
  • 1:31 P.M.- $102,102 bid placed by ngoan
  • 5:05 P.M.- $103,103 bid placed by USAUSAUSA
  • 5:06 P.M.- $104,104 bid placed by ngoan
  • 6:38 P.M.- $105,105 bid placed by USAUSAUSA
  • 6:41 P.M.- $106,601 bid placed by ngoan
  • 3:51 A.M.- $108,000 bid placed by srkhatti
  • 6:14 A.M.- $109,109 bid placed by ngoan

Since Bring A Trailer and its community is more transparent than traditional auction houses, anyone can see who’s bidding, bidders often using screen names close to the ones they already use.

Since the bids starting at $90,000 are of interest, those are the names worth looking at more closely.

  • User GRP09 is IndyCar racer Graham Rahal
  • User Ngoan is AKA @NgoaNSX on Instagram, is a software engineer and app developer, and already owns a ’98 ITR in Championship White among other more expensive sports cars. He clearly appreciates these cars for what they are.
  • User USAUSAUSA already bid on and won a 1,900 mile S2000 and 5,600 miles EM1 Civic Si so, you can say low-mileage Hondas is one of their things.
  • User Trifecta123 placed a $101,000 bid on, won, and now owns a ’01 NSX, not to mention a 17,000 mile GS-R they also won for $25,000. Spending six-figures on some rad-era Hondas is already a thing for this person.
  • Can’t glean much info off of user Srkhatti except he’s bid on and won a ’91 BMW M3 with just 31,000 miles earlier last year and, since the ITR has been called the M3 of Japan, clearly, he knows why this car is highly coveted.

Based on who’s willing to bid, it’s people with high levels of disposable income who appreciate these rad bastions of the analog era and understand opportunities like this don’t come around often.

As an investment you can drive

Another big reason people are willing to spend so much on an Integra Type R with such low mileage is because, if insured properly, it will keep its value and will probably appreciate for years to come.

If the winning owner decides to drive it, there are several thousands of miles they can go before it starts to eat into the resale value. Or, if the owner doesn’t care about the re-sale and just wants to enjoy it, they now have an analog time capsule of a car to rack up mileage in.

In this day and age where people are spending over $300,000 on a Bored Ape NFT, does spending six figures on a car you can register and wring out to redline on the daily sound so insane?

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