Everyone thought this Craigslist ad for a free 2000 Integra Type R in Phoenix Yellow was totally fake…except it wasn’t.

Update (8/25): Found the owner. The ad was definitely 100% true. Will share more details as there’s a video in the works.

Update (8/28): It’s on Craigslist again. Click here for the ad. Resellers want $14,000. Still, plenty of meat on the bones if you ask me. Resellers Instagram post below.

Update 8/29- Check out their video!

Update 8/30- I’ve come across some information that I can’t not share. It looks like there’s a reason this ITR was given away for free and for so cheap, sometime in its lifetime and probably by its first owner, it’s been wrecked despite it now having a clean title. According to someone who checked out the car, after driving 3 hours to get there, shortly after the ad popped up

“The car has been repainted/ wrecked in the past, the badge number/ center console lid is missing. The car was in a previous rear-end accident that was not ever fixed as well as trunk floor is pushed in. Car is not nice

There is yellow overspray on bolts in the engine bay, also clear coat is missing all over the car and ITRs came single stage paint, I found out basically 95% of the car or so has been repainted. The rear floor is crushed in.

Check out the videos they shot below.

If you still want to check out this particular Integra Type R, do a walkaround, confirm for yourself what this potential buyer alleges and match up the video he provided below.

Just know that you’re probably going to see internal structural damage and it would behoove you to walk away or not even bother making the drive.

A Craigslist ad for a beat-up 2000 Acura Integra Type R popped up on the internet way back at the beginning of August and everyone thought it was a scam, that the ad was fake, and you’d be a fool to pursue it. But, according to a now-deleted Facebook thread that popped up on NWP4LIFE’s Facebook discussion group earlier today, not only was that ad not fake, it was all 100 percent true.

Someone wanted to get rid of a 2000 Acura Integra Type R, wanted it out of their hands and just wanted more room for a more practical car.

Here’s a couple of photos I’ve scrounged from the thread when it was up that tells 80 percent of the story.

First, here’s the link to the deleted Craigslist ad linked here. As with most Craigslist ads this old, the ad maker’s already deleted the post.

I tried searching on Google to see if it’s cached and on Archive.org, but no luck. Google searches with variations of the Craigslist URL and title did bring up snippets of the original ad before the update including

After starting a family I bought another 4 door family cars so this Type R… I bought this car new in 2000. It was my daily driver until 2015. It has about 100k miles. All stock

Cosmetically it is not pretty with portion of body paint flaking.

Additional information I gleaned “through the grapevine” includes that whoever picked it up paid around $2,000 and then some for the Type R. As the images of the updated Craigslist ad show, the owner caught on that he’s giving away something really valuable and should probably ask for something to make the transaction a little easier.

Also, someone mentioned how it’s a salvage title which hints at some repaired damage somewhere. One door with all its clearcoat leads me to think there was a side collision sometime in this ITR’s life.

Although I initially wrote and then redacted that someone mentioned it was salvage title, it’s not. The title on the 2000 Acura Integra Type R is clean, it just looks like the first owner parked it outside for way too long.

But, who cares, it’s a free $2,000 Acura Integra Type R.

One thing we can get out of the way is if it’s a real 2000 Acura Integra Type R or not and I can absolutely say with 100 percent certainty it is. Someone pulled up the car’s records via its license plate and at least Carfax and the Bureau of Automotive Repair’s says it’s a real Type R.

Also, all exterior aero and correct badge placement lends me to believe this is a true Type R.

Believe it or not but I actually think this whole story is entirely true. Here’s why.

First, Since this person bought this car new in 2000, I’m going to assume he was already doing pretty well. Currently living in West San Jose, the heart of Silicon Valley, with houses that are now worth more than $2 million in some cases, I’m further going to assume he’s still probably doing OK as far as money is concerned.

And according to the now second owners, although he was offered upwards of $8,000, it was never really about the money. You know you’ve got to be doing well when you say, “I couldn’t care less how much I get for this extremely rare USDM import legend”

This man clearly cares about cars given that he’s owned a Type R, a real driver’s car, but at his age and extrapolating from where he lives, frankly, he has other priorities, mainly his family I guess.

The internet is rife with posts about insanely priced Acura Integra Type R’s but those are really only for pristine ones.

Determining this car’s current value, referencing Bring A Trailer, where someone spent over $65,000 for a pristine ITR all the way down to $13,750 for one that has high-mileage and several marks against it, I’d conservatively price this Integra Type R at about $9,000.

The second owner definitely got a come up with this deal, that’s for sure.

What we can learn from this is that while most ads that are too good to be true are really too good to be true, a handful, and I really mean a handful, are…true.

Don’t sleep on any ad and maybe one day you’ll score yourself a $2,000 Acura Integra Type R. Realistically, you probably won’t because this is truly once in a century type of deal.

What do you think about this once in a lifetime story? Let me know in the comments below!