97 Acura Cl Runs & Drives But Needs Work on 2040-cars

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2017 Acura MDX Sport Hybrid goes on sale in April for $52,935

If you like the hybrid tech of the Acura NSX, but don't need a six-figure, 191-mph supercar as your daily driver, you might enjoy the extra room of the Acura MDX Sport Hybrid. It uses the same SH-AWD system with three electric motors as its racier stablemate – and puts a naturally aspirated 3.0-liter V6 up front – but seats up to seven people. It goes on sale in early April, and Acura has announced a starting MSRP of $52,935. The MDX Sport Hybrid starts at $7,910 higher than the base, front-wheel-drive MDX, but only $1,500 more than the comparably equipped, non-hybrid MDX SH-AWD. It offers 31 more ponies, for a total of 321 peak horsepower and of 289 pound-feet of torque. It's less expensive than the other Acura to use the Sport Hybrid system, the RLX sedan, which starts at $59,950. (That car incurs a price premium of $5,500 over its P-AWS-equipped FWD base model; there's no non-hybrid AWD RLX.) The MDX Sport Hybrid gets an EPA-rated 26 mpg city, 27 highway, and 27 combined. Compared to the conventional MDX SH-AWD's 18/26/21 mpg rating, its biggest fuel economy gains are to be found in city driving. The Sport Hybrid's figures are even slightly better than the 25/26/26 mpg Acura expected when the car debuted in New York last year. The MDX Sport Hybrid should be fairly entertaining to drive, too, at least for a utility vehicle. It's Acura's most powerful SUV to date, and it offers four driving modes: Comfort, Normal, Sport, and Sport+. A seven-speed dual-clutch transmission handles the gear changes, but the driver can take control via a pair of paddles on the back of the steering wheel. The SH-AWD system's torque vectoring feature promises to help make the MDX proficient in the twisty bits, too. Related Video:

Acura NSX GT3 racecar bares all in raw carbon

Acura slowly and dramatically revealed the NSX over a period of years. There were previews, concepts, and lots of teases before Acura finally showed us the whole thing. It's a different story for the racecar. And today, the wraps come off the FIA GT3-spec NSX to show all of its bare-carbon glory. The NSX GT3 strips away more than just the paint from the standard road car. The racecar comes sans hybrid system, meaning all the power from the twin-turbocharged 3.5-liter V6 is sent solely to the rear wheels. Modifications to the body include a large rear wing, underbody diffuser, and bigger hood vents for engine cooling. While the hybrid system may be gone, the NSX GT3 uses the same block, heads, valvetrain, crankshaft, pistons, and dry sump lubrication system as the road car. Power is sent through a six-speed sequential gearbox instead of the road car's nine-speed. The NSX GT3 will be built alongside the street version in Ohio. Honda engineers in Japan and North America shared in the development. Final GT3 homologation will be completed by the company's Honda Performance Division in Santa Clarita, CA. Related video:

This is why Acura hasn't yet announced its EV strategy

Despite parent company Honda's green and friendly brand image, luxury marque Acura hasn't made a grand statement about electrifying their lineup. Even as brands like Jaguar, Land Rover, Bentley, and Infiniti pledge to entirely electrify their lineups in the coming decade, Acura has held back. The reason, according to Acura head honcho Jon Ikeda, is that it's focusing on reestablishing itself as a performance brand. In a wide-ranging interview with Automotive News, Ikeda says Acura came out of the gate strong in 1986 and did well for the first 20 years, but when the bottom fell out of the market in 2008 the brand experienced "growing pains." That spawned a period of self-reflection and, as Ikeda puts it, "What are we about?" The decision was made to go back to Acura's roots as the performance division of Honda. "That's what Acura is. That's what I fell in love with," Ikeda says. Ikeda joined Honda in 1989, but his promotion to Acura boss in 2015 was a surprise to many, including himself. That's because Honda had a tradition of putting engineers at the helm, and Ikeda was a designer, responsible for the looks of such cars as the FSX concept, 2001 Civic Coupe, and beloved 2004 Acura TL. 2021 Acura TLX Advance View 38 Photos When asked by AN whether Acura is worried that luxury competitors are putting stakes in the ground to claim EV brand identities, Ikeda says no. "For us as a brand, we needed to kind of refocus and reestablish ourselves as a performance brand... We want everybody to understand where we are, what we're about first. Even if we go electric we will continue to be a performance division of Honda and performance will be our focus." To earn its performance street cred, Acura poured resources into the second-gen NSX hybrid supercar, which served as testbed for how electricity can work harmoniously with performance. They will continue to campaign IMSA race cars to earn trophies as proof, and Ikeda also wants to bring more Type S models to the lineup. Ikeda says Acura is still in the process of rebuilding its foundation, but when he's done he expects people to associate Acura with performance. That sure seems ambitious to us, but products like the new TLX are a helpful stepping stone. It also explains why Acura is investing in different platforms to differentiate itself from Honda. To be clear, Ikeda isn't ruling out electrification.