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2021 Acura TLX Long-Term Update | Drive mode selector is a surprise delight

You may have seen last week my column espousing the sensory benefits of physical switchgear in cars. They can add a bit of fun and character in the smallest ways. As it turns out, our long-term Acura TLX has a great example of this idea: the drive mode selector. In most cars, drive modes are typically chosen via a nondescript button tucked away in the center console. Sometimes the selector is buried in an infotainment menu. But in the TLX, it’s a huge, gleaming knob placed front and center in the main control stack. It would be impossible to miss. ItÂ’s actually even more prominent than the buttons for shifting. 2021 Acura TLX A-Spec View 51 Photos With the size and placement, itÂ’s a nice dial to grasp, and works with smooth action and a solid stop in either direction for flipping through modes. But what really brings it together is the speed at which modes are selected, and the sound the infotainment system makes upon choosing one. In some cars it can take a long time for the system to acknowledge your selection and engage it, but the Acura activates it nearly as soon as youÂ’ve let the dial snap back to center. And it confirms your choice with sort of whoosh-y electronic clink through the speakers. ItÂ’s the kind of quick reaction and sound design you get from high-quality video game menus. All of these aspects make the TLX nicer to use and feel more premium. It doesnÂ’t feel like a hassle to change drive modes since it takes very little time and works well. ThatÂ’s especially welcome if you like driving it in the sport mode, since the car defaults to the normal mode on start-up. It also makes the car feel like it has fast-acting software befitting a premium car. It may seem like a small thing, but small things matter when cars have become so good. And I appreciate that Acura took its time with this seemingly little component. Related Video:

Here's a sneak peek at the 2023 Acura Integra interior

Photos: Zac Palmer / Autoblog DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Acura staged its Integra Prototype at a display at the Rolex 24 at Daytona this weekend, inviting enterprising amateur and professional photographers alike to sneak a peak at the interior thanks to the bright Florida sun. The photos you're looking at here are ones we took at Rolex, and they essentially reveal what the 2023 Acura Integra's interior will look like. If you recall from the car's initial reveal, Acura did not show photos of the Prototype's interior. Before we dive too deep, though, we can tell that while the design appears to be final, some of the finer details are still a bit rough. Not all of the plastics, surfaces and badging look final, so don't expect everything you see here to directly port over to production. That said, this is still an awesome sneak peek at the upcoming Integra that we weren't expecting to get. From what we can see here, the interior design seems to take a cue from the Integra's underpinnings, which can be traced back to the sporty Honda Civic Si. Photos posted to integraforums.com show the prototype's dash before Acura's reps covered the upper portion to hide it from view. In them, you can see the mesh air vent design that debuted on the Civic, albeit with a different execution here (that treatment runs the full width of the dash in the Honda). Plus, the touchscreen infotainment rising from the dash is also in plain view. The seats look like Acura's latest seat style as opposed to Civic Si seats, and they even feature a neat two-tone black and white design. What does appear to be a direct Civic rip is the steering wheel, which gains an Acura badge and what looks like the rough outline of an A-Spec badge for Integra duty. We'll note that this likely means that the Integra will be offered in A-Spec trim, just like every other new Acura on sale today. The original Integra was never sold as an A-Spec in the U.S., but the RSX Type S (named Integra outside the U.S.) was available in A-Spec trim. Another difference between the Integra interior seen here versus the Civic is a new door panel design. Very little changes in the rear bench, though, as it's featuring the same drop-down armrest and pair of USB ports for rear occupants. The Integra Prototype is notably longer than a Civic Hatchback, but we didn't see any discernible increase in utility in the back.

2019 Acura ILX first drive | New looks, same lackluster performance

Acura knows what it takes to make a fun, compact car that enthusiasts desire. It did so for three decades with the Integra, which eventually morphed into the still fun RSX. Then the ILX came around for the 2013 model year, and the world collectively yawned. It's actually still yawning, and the 2019 redesign isn't doing a whole lot to change that. One might expect more wholesale changes from a car entering its seventh year on the market, but we're still staring down the barrel of the same 201 horsepower 2.4-liter naturally aspirated four-cylinder and trick dual-clutch automatic transmission (which also features a torque converter for low-speed smoothness) from before. These pieces aren't necessarily the problem though. It's enjoyable to thrash the engine out to 7,000 rpm, and the dual-clutch snaps off surprisingly quick shifts when using the paddles in manual mode. It's a bit of a throwback to before all of Honda's performance engines switched to turbocharging for power. It pulls harder the more you wring it out, and begs to be paired with a slick-shifting six-speed manual like it was in the ninth-gen Civic Si. Sadly, everything else outside the powertrain (still) just misses the mark. The greatest part of Acura's old performance compacts was how they made you feel when you were driving them. There was an intimate connection between the driver and road at all times that is sorely lacking from the ILX. Turn in feel is soft and doesn't offer satisfying quick changes of direction. The old chassis feels its age in controlling body movements too. It all culminates in making the ILX feel like a larger car than it actually is. That's not to say the ILX handles poorly, though; it simply does so without any eagerness or feel — just like it has from the beginning. This is unfortunate because the ILX looks better than it ever has. Acura re-did the whole front nose from the A-pillar forward, and it attacked the rear fascia too. We got to check out and drive A-Spec trimmed cars, which add even more aggression to the styling but no performance upgrades. Sure there's three-too-many fake air vents, but the car finally grew some teeth compared to the ultra-bland looks from before. Props for not following the terrible industry trend of totally unreasonably-sized fake exhaust outlets too. The interior isn't as exciting.