I could never get tired of reading about an '85 Toyota Corolla AE86, looking at pictures of a clean-body '81 Toyota Starlet, or wonder how a person, A) finds a '71 Datsun 510 Wagon, and B) manages to get that 510 Wagon into a more immaculate state than not only its original, but also some of the cars built within the past five years. It's always refreshing, though, to see something other than a Toyota or Datsun in the "Back in the Day" section of this magazine. Bryan Leon's genuine right-hand-drive (RHD) '93 Honda Integra is tuning at its finest, but as I write this article about his ride, I found something strangely amiss and it wasn't anything Bryan did.
Anytime something from `93 is considered old school, a piece of me becomes a little bit more insecure about the fact that I'm getting super old. Consider this for a minute: I'm 10 years away from my first colonoscopy test, a procedure that on its Wikipedia page suggests that I also "See: Anal Probe" for further information. I would've clicked on that suggested link, except for the fact that I didn't want the "Anal Probe" Wikipedia page posted on my browser's History, fearing that if I died the moment I was looking at it, the paramedics would've found me slumped over my keyboard with the words "Anal Probing" in bold Arial font on my computer screen. It's really not the coolest way to peace out of this world. It's also not the coolest thing to get a colonoscopy, and I'm 10 years away from that.
Yes, `93 was 16 years ago but is that really old school? Anyone born in the late `70s may have had a similar Integra as their first car. Anyone born in the late `80s may have rolled shotgun in a similar Integra but atop a car seat. Snoop Dogg's "Doggystyle" album dropped in '93. Would that be an old school rap album? I called Bryan to get his take on the situation, seeing that he is the owner of the car:
"I definitely think my Integra is old school," Bryan said, "I was eight-years-old the time it came out, and I remember it being one of the first cars I fell in love with. It's like when the older generation grew up with Starlets and 510s. They remember those days of not being able to drive legally yet, but dreaming about having a Datsun 510. Now that they have money and a driver's license, the first thing they want to build is the car they first fell in love with. The Integra is my version of the Starlet and 510, and that to me, is old school."
The fact that his older brother was a car enthusiast when Bryan was growing up also helped shape Bryan into an Integra-loving tuner and now old school fanatic. Around the same time he was falling in love with the Integra, his older brother David was rolling around in a four-door Honda Civic EF. "It was clean and simple," Bryan remembers, "It was that car and my brother's love for it than made me love the tuning scene. It just rubbed off on me quickly." It was also his brother that gave him the JDM bug later on and ultimately the inspiration to get to where he is now, inside the exclusive "Back in the Day" feature club.
Around four years ago, David started a new car project with a RHD Integra that set off multiple flashing light bulbs inside Bryan's head. He figured they can both build one around the same time, and went straight to looking for a RHD chassis. Thankfully, his good buddy, Gabriel from Eastside Muffler in Palmdale, CA had a JDM RHD Integra shell lying around the shop. Bryan purchased it for $3,000 off the bat and blueprinted a plan to refine it in the cleanest and simplest way possible. It was Bryan's homage to his childhood, to the car he fell in love with, and to the moderate approach of building a ride to minimal expectations. It was a perfect situation all around.