1999 Acura Rl on 2040-cars

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Hands-on with Acura's novel touchpad infotainment interface

After Acura's Precision Cockpit was unveiled here in LA, I sat in the, uh, driver's seat of the wheel-less interior mockup to get a feel for how this new touchscreen-free touch interface works. There are a lot of good ideas inside. Here are 11 things you should know. It's less like a trackpad and more like a remote-control tablet. So instead of letting you move a cursor relative to its last location like the trackpad on a laptop, each point on Acura's trackpad is mapped to a corresponding point on the center display. If you want what's in the upper right corner of the display, you touch and click in the upper right corner of the trackpad. Simple. I figured it out in two minutes. Maybe less. The whole thing is surprisingly intuitive. The ease of use is helped by the fact that the targets on the screen are pretty big – no tiny "buttons" to fiddle with. The clicks are real. The trackpad actually moves when you press down, so no need for simulated haptic feedback. In their research, Acura engineers found that accidental touches and presses are a real issue. We could have told them that – hit a bump while using a finicky remote interface like Lexus's all-but-abandoned joystick thing, and you select an item half-way across the screen from the one you intended. The placement of the trackpad in this concept interior also helps avoid unintentional inputs – it's not in the middle of the center console where it might get brushed or bumped, but instead in its own little cave at the base of the center-stack waterfall. (Acura's low-profile button-based transmission selector suddenly makes a whole lot of sense.) View 13 Photos Lots of cues cut down on distraction. You hover over the option you want before positively confirming the selection with a hard press. There's no cursor to find and reposition like in the Lexus trackpad system The red highlight gives the necessary visual cue that you put your finger in the right place. The pad is slightly dished to give you a tactile cue of where the center and edges are. It allows you to build up muscle memory, sort of like how you know generally where the "keys" are on your smartphone or tablet's virtual keyboard by now. Or at least I do on mine. You look at the screen, not what you're touching. The problem with touch screens is that they have to be low down in the car so you can reach them. That means you have to look down from the road to stab at what you want.

Acura prices hand-built TLX PMC Edition at $50,945

Acura unveiled the 2020 TLX PMC Edition sedan at this year's New York Auto Show along with the MDX PMC Edition Prototype. Both models adopt the same hand-finished build processes employed at Honda's Performance Manufacturing Center to create the Acura NSX. In the case of the sedan, that means a body-in-white pulled off the line at Honda's Marysville plant so that PMC technicians can install the interior, drivetrain, suspension, wiring harnesses, and electronics. After that, the TLX PMC undergoes the same quality control checks conducted on the NSX, including a dyno run and water leak test. The price: $50,945, which includes $1,995 for handling and destination. In addition to the craftsmanship, the sedan combines two options that normally cannot be combined, the A-Spec and Advance Packages. They install the 290-horsepower 3.5-liter V6 and Super Handling All-Wheel Drive, the A-Spec's stiffer dampers and quicker steering ratio, plus sharper exterior components like the restyled bumper, larger exhaust tips, and gloss black roof panel. Comfort features include heated and ventilated front sport seats, leather and Alcantara seating, black leather steering wheel, black headliner, surround-view camera, heated rear seats, and Acura's 10-speaker ELS Studio audio system. Cosmetic go-fast changes are seen in the red instrument cluster and red accent lighting. The whole package gets drenched in Valencia Red Pearl paint formerly exclusive to the NSX but making one special appearance here, the crimson infused with mica, metal flake and "nano pigments" for keener color. Black, 10-spoke, 19-inch wheels anchor the sedan to the road. The U.S. will see just 360 examples of the TLX PMC, each one numbered with a plaque on the dash. Deliveries to dealers begin this month — each sedan transported in a single-car carrier. The entire production run is scheduled to take six months, after which we're told Acura will begin working on the MDX PMC.

Rare 1999 Acura NSX Zanardi Edition sells for $135,000

Somebody just bought a 1999 Acura NSX Zanardi Edition for $135,000 on Bring a Trailer. And to that we say, we’re jealous. The Zanardi Edition is one of the more sought-after NSX models out there. Acura only ever sold 51 of them (named after racer Alex Zanardi), and they were sold during a time that nearly every NSX sold here was an NSX-T with the T-top. The hardtop Zanardi Edition features a number of performance improvements over a typical 1999 NSX. Acura took a sizable chunk of weight out of the car. Versus a hardtop coupe, itÂ’s about 54 pounds lighter. Compared to the more popular NSX-T, itÂ’s 149 pounds lighter. This was done in a few ways, but the single biggest weight reduction was due to the power steering delete, making it more like the older NSXs that never had power steering. Lightweight BBS wheels, a lighter battery, single-pane rear glass and a lighter rear spoiler also helped to reduce weight. It received a “racetrack-tuned suspension” that was considerably stiffer than the regular NSX. The shocks, springs and bushings were all revised, and Acura lowered the ride height (0.6 inch in front, 0.3 inch in rear). A stiffer and larger rear stabilizer bar was fitted, too. The Zanardi Edition is rather distinctive looking because of its New Formula Red paint and dark BBS wheels. Acura added red stitching to the all black interior, and owners also got to use a sweet titanium shift knob. And of course, thereÂ’s a special edition plaque on the interior to officially declare it a Zanardi.  Acura did nothing to the engine or transmission. Therefore, it retains the 3.2-liter V6 (290 horsepower and 224 pound-feet of torque) and six-speed manual. We donÂ’t get to see many Zanardi Editions go up for sale, but when they do, they get the big bucks. At 57,000 miles, this one is still on the low side, hence the $135,000 final bid. A regular (albeit newer) 2004 NSX-T with 1,900 miles just sold for $133,000 earlier today. So yeah Â… NSX values donÂ’t seem to be going anywhere but up these days. Related video: