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Nice car seeks Millennials | 2018 Acura TLX First Drive

The Acura TLX has a new face. And a rear diffuser. There's also a new A-Spec version with stiffer dampers, quicker steering, a snarlier engine, and snazzy red leather. Plus, every TLX has a revised touchscreen with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. That pretty much sums up the refreshed 2018 Acura TLX entry-level luxury sedan, which didn't exactly drop into the market with a splash when it launched originally. Is all of that enough to make a difference? Probably not. After a day driving it around southern Indiana and the outskirts of Louisville, Kentucky, the TLX continues to be a perfectly nice car. It's refined and the cabin is well built, but otherwise the sedan is unremarkable. Ah, but there's more going on here than just a mid-cycle refresh. The 2018 TLX is Acura's latest effort following the revised MDX to recast itself as the maker of "precision-crafted performance" cars, inspired by both the NSX and the Precision Concept car shown at the 2016 Detroit Auto Show. It's a top-to-bottom, R&D-to-marketing attempt to better appeal to today's holy grail of customer: the Millennial. To do that, it goes beyond the cars themselves. New Acura commercials are a far cry from an authoritative James Spader rationally extolling the virtues of this and that. There are fast cuts and three images perpetually on screen. There's pulse-pumping music, bright colors, and words like "Geek + Chic" and "Super + Sonic." There are many not-exactly-subliminal images of the NSX. There's a red Power Ranger. It's hip! It's young! It's Millennial! It's also a marketing campaign that has apparently connected with its target generation – well, at least in focus group ratings. "If you look at what the other brands are doing, and particularly the luxury brands, it's so serious," said Jon Ikeda, Acura vice president and general manager. "We're trying to make it more inclusive, not intimidating, more youthful, more optimistic, and more fun. We want to have fun with it. "[The commercials] are trying to set the tone of Acura in general, to make people go, 'OK, I'm interested in that, I want to go drive that.' Now it's up to us to make sure the product reflects that." And Ikeda is actually in a position to make that happen. He's not a business guy or a Mad Men marketing sort – he's moved upstairs after spending decades in design, a tenure that included penning the third-generation TL, the best-selling Acura model of all time and one of the best-looking.

Acura Integra to capstone combustion era as EV transition begins

The recent launch of the resurrected Integra nameplate is just part of a larger shift in mission at Acura. Its leaders have repeatedly said they want Acura to be the performance brand of Honda, where driving fun and dynamics come first. However, in a new report, Acura says it plans to go big on fully electric vehicles, at even greater speed than its parent company, by skipping the hybrid step altogether. According to Acura assistant VP of sales Emile Korkor, the Integra was a capstone to the internal combustion era at Acura. It marked a sort of homecoming to the marque's performance pedigree, and once Integra is launched, the brand will move forward with electrifying its lineup. The company's plans were revealed in an Automotive News interview, where Korkor said, "We're going to bypass hybrids altogether. So our shift is going very rapidly into BEV. That's our main focus." At first blush, that seems to be at odds with brand boss Jon Ikeda's public statements about Acura. As recently as a couple of weeks ago, Ikeda was saying that he wanted to take the Integra racing, as something of a mascot for the "fun" brand at Honda. Perhaps we've been desensitized to automakers making big proclamations about EV transitions a la Jaguar, Land Rover, Bentley, and Infiniti, but typically the green messaging has not been about performance in the traditional sense. Says Korkor, "We're not just dipping our toe in the water with electric at Acura, we are jumping all in. And that's not just because we need to. It's because we want to. Acura is really focused on performance, and electrification is one of the greatest ways we can augment that performance." While electrification and performance are not mutually exclusive, we have yet to drive an EV that connects to the road as beautifully as a 1990s Integra or NSX did. Acuras have never been about power and torque. Yet they were still compelling performance cars thanks to brilliant steering and driving dynamics. Then there's the issue of what Acura represents. Back in February, Ikeda said that Acura was purposefully holding off on an EV strategy because it needed to re-establish its performance bona fides. Now, Korkor says, "The benefit of returning to the Integra right now is that it's going to help shepherd a new generation of customers and build loyalty as we move into a new era." The problem is, the Integra alone isn't enough to establish that performance cred.

2022 Acura MDX Type S First Drive Review | Spicy-enough family hauler

NAPA, Calif. — First things first: The 2022 Acura MDX Type S is not the Honda premium brandÂ’s attempt to create a BMW X5M. Then again, at $67,745, it comes in 30 grand under the storming German SUV. So while the Type S carries the imprimatur of high performance, it is priced more in line with the entry-level BMW X5 xDrive40i, plus the Audi Q7 55 TFSI and Mercedes GLE 450 4Matic that have upgrade engines but fall well short of being considered high-performance models. Acura makes a more convincing showing of it with the Type S, but you still get what you pay for – and sometimes paying less is OK. What Acura has created is an upgraded midsized SUV that gives sufficient sportiness to enthusiastic drivers, without clamping down on handling and braking harder than ThanosÂ’ gauntlet. HereÂ’s what to tell your friends at the bar: Acura ripped out the stock 3.5-liter V6 for a 3.0-liter sequential twin-scroll turbo that adds 65 horsepower (to 355) and 87 pound-feet of torque (to 354), and beefed up the 10-speed automatic transmission with a new torque converter, stronger gears and improved clutches to handle the increased power. It was also reprogrammed for improved response, especially in the new, Type S-exclusive Sport+ mode. Brake upgrades include four-piston 14.3-inch Brembos up front. And Acura claims its first-ever air suspension – courtesy of supplier Continental – delivers both improved ride and dynamic performance. What does that mean when youÂ’re actually behind the wheel? On a rainy day in Napa, California, marked with intermittent drizzle that turned the narrow two-lane roads greasy and slithery, the MDX Type S revealed its beefy size on occasion but also comported itself confidently. Most confident on corners marked “35 mph” or above, the Type S felt a bit bogged down in slower corners – especially when getting on the gas too early. Acura claims that its torque-vectoring Super Handling All-Wheel Drive will help round off corners when accelerating out of an apex, but the laws of physics and slippery roads still apply. Hitting the gas earlier in a wet cornerÂ’s apex can result in some bonus wheel slippage and mini-rotations thanks to SH-AWD, which is great fun if you are expecting it from this 4,741-pound beast.