Acura: Mdx Sh-awd on 2040-cars

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Poor headlights cause 40 cars to miss IIHS Top Safety Pick rating

Over the past few months, we've noticed a number of cars and SUVs that have come incredibly close to earning one of the IIHS's highest accolades, the Top Safety Pick rating. They have great crash test scores and solid automatic emergency braking and forward collision warning systems. What trips them up is headlights. That got us wondering, how many vehicles are there that are coming up short because they don't have headlights that meet the organization's criteria for an "Acceptable" or "Good" rating. This is a revision made after 2017, a year in which headlights weren't factored in for this specific award. This is also why why some vehicles, such as the Ford F-150, might have had the award last year, but have lost it for this year. We reached out to someone at IIHS to find out. He responded with the following car models. Depending on how you count, a whopping 40 models crash well enough to receive the rating, but don't get it because their headlights are either "Poor" or "Marginal." We say depending on how you count because the IIHS actual counts truck body styles differently, and the Infiniti Q70 is a special case. Apparently the version of the Q70 that has good headlights doesn't have adequate forward collision prevention technology. And the one that has good forward collision tech doesn't have good enough headlights. We've provided the entire list of vehicles below in alphabetical order. Interestingly, it seems the Volkswagen Group is having the most difficulty providing good headlights with its otherwise safe cars. It had the most models on the list at 9 split between Audi and Volkswagen. GM is next in line with 7 models. It is worth noting again that though these vehicles have subpar headlights and don't quite earn Top Safety Pick awards, that doesn't mean they're unsafe. They all score well enough in crash testing and forward collision prevention that they would get the coveted award if the lights were better.

2013 Acura ILX Hybrid

This Is Not The Acura You're Looking For
Mid-level luxury brands have always had to do a bit of leg work to distance themselves from their more common cousins. Thanks to generation after generation of pervasive badge engineering (much of it from the Big Three), buyers can't be blamed for looking at brands like Buick, Lincoln, Infiniti, Lexus and yes, Acura as tarted up versions of Chevrolet, Ford, Nissan, Toyota and Honda products. For much of its lifetime in the automotive landscape, however, Acura has excelled at putting distance between its offerings and that of its parent company thanks to cars with superior driving dynamics, quieter cabins and clean, attractive aesthetics.
Yes, outliers and dull spots can be found in the company's recent track record, but by and large, Acura products remain situated well above the Honda rabble. When the brand announced it was getting serious about the luxury small car game with the ILX, those of us with a set of the company's keys in our past couldn't help but envision an honest successor to the long-dead Integra. Turns out, that wasn't what Acura had in mind.

Acura Integra will return in 2022 after a long hiatus

Putting a modern spin on much-loved classics is a growing trend in the automotive industry. Ford resurrected the Bronco, Lamborghini is bringing back the Countach, and Acura unexpectedly announced a new Integra for 2022. Acura has done a perfect job of keeping the next-generation Integra under wraps. There have been no leaks or rumors, and our spies haven't even spotted pre-production prototypes out and about. We consequently know very little about the car; the firm simply promised it will offer "the same fun-to-drive spirit and DNA of the original." Spring 2022. pic.twitter.com/4JsuLDj8b9 — Acura (@Acura) August 13, 2021 The crunchiest crumb of information that we have is a sketch that shows part of the front end. It's enough to tell with a high degree of certainty that the Integra won't wear a retro-inspired design; sorry, fans of pop-up headlights. Instead, it looks like it falls in line with recent additions to the Acura range thanks to sharp lights with LED accents and an angular grille. There's also a new interpretation of the Integra logo below the driver-side headlight. Beyond that, the Honda-owned carmaker simply confirmed the Integra will land as a compact premium car, which is exactly what the nameplate has denoted since its introduction for the 1986 model year. While this is pure speculation, it wouldn't be completely unthinkable for Acura to build the next Integra on an evolution of the platform that underpins the 11th-generation Civic unveiled earlier in 2021. Many of the earlier Integra models were based on or related to the Civic, and there was even a Civic sold as an Integra in a handful of overseas markets. More details about the 2022 Acura Integra will emerge in the coming months. Storied past Acura arrived on the automotive scene in 1986 with a range made up of two cars: the Integra (which was offered with two or four doors) and the bigger Legend. While both were aimed at the premium end of the market, the original Integra (shown above) put a far greater focus on performance than on luxury, and it never strayed far from this positioning. It was peppy, nimble, fun to drive, and reasonably affordable; pricing started at $9,859 in 1986 (roughly $24,600 in 2021). As time went on, many buyers realized that the little Acura was also stunningly durable. The second-generation Integra arrived for 1990 with an updated design and more powerful engines, and the four-door model received a more conventional three-box design.