As writers of the world’s leading import automotive authority–one dedicated to representing a wide variety of the tuning spectrum–we sometimes struggle to write about the cars we know you like, but we don’t necessarily like ourselves (we’re sure you can guess which ones we’re alluding to). Other times, the stories write themselves. Take this JDM Integra Type R-converted, Full-Race-powered, flawlessly candy-clad RSX Type-S, for example. One of the cleanest DC5s we’ve seen, the kicker was that the car was a full-on reconstruction of a totaled chassis. And the story just got better once we learned that the owner built the car entirely with his own two hands, from start to finish, in one half of a two-car garage in a residential neighborhood in the middle-of-nowhere, PA. We’re betting even the Nissan heads are still reading this.
"I was 17, just wrecked my first car, and was looking for another project when I found this totaled RSX Type-S for dirt cheap on eBay," Josh Croll told us within the first few minutes of our conversation. When we asked what sane parents would allow their 17-year-old kid to auction off all his money on a wrecked car to (hopefully) stuff in their garage along with a grip of parts to make it go fast, he clarified: "My dad owned his own body shop back when I was little. I used to mess around and help him as far back as I can remember. Building cars is just what we’ve always done."
Josh’s first car was a ’97 Impreza he and his dad restored to factory condition when Josh was 14. Chosen for the safety of AWD in cold, snowy Northeast winters, Josh was quick to discover the car’s side benefits of monster handling and performance tunability via the burgeoning aftermarket. "By the time I was 17, the car was completely riced out," he laughs. "But it was fast." Maybe too fast. It met its demise one winter evening when even AWD couldn’t overcome a patch of black ice around a bad bend. What was left was parted out and the money rolled over into the subject at hand.
"It was a mess when I first got it," he says. "I don’t know exactly how, but it got T-boned on the right and sandwiched between two cars in the front and rear." Saying the damage was extensive is an understatement. Once Josh and his pops tore into it, they found out that it had actually been reconstructed–poorly–once before. "I had to replace the radiator support, right front framerail, right uni-side assembly, right door jamb, and right rear quarter-panel," he tells. "And that was just so we could get it on the rack and straighten out the frame." It was piecing together the additional body components that the direction for the RSX’s conversion took shape. Josh had a tough time sourcing used parts for a new-ish, rare, RSX Type-S, until he found Elite JDM. "They had imported a wrecked JDM DC5 Integra Type R to part out," he explains. "I went there looking for a replacement door and left with pretty much the whole thing." Josh reconstructed the RSX’s front with the JDM ITR rad support, HID projector headlights, fenders, and hood, and bolted on the JDM doors (complete with JDM-only removable aluminum side impact bracing), hubs, and control arms (including JDM-only aluminum front lower control arms), and later, ditched the RSX’s sunroof for a solid sheetmetal skin only the JDM ITRs came with. He also sourced additional components–like the OEM tinted rear and side glass, rear wiper, carbon-fiber door speakers, and Gathers navigation–from a C-package JDM Integra chassis.