2005 Acura Tl, A-spec Package, 52k Miles, Fully Loaded, Garage Kept on 2040-cars

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Acura previews Daytona prototype racer

The IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship will get yet another competitor in the Daytona Prototype class. Acura and Team Penske will enter the series in January at the Rolex 24 at Daytona with its own car called the ARX-05. The name stands for Acura Racing Experimental, which we know means it should be called ARE, but let's be honest, "X" is a way cooler letter. The car's full reveal comes on Aug. 18, but the company released a teaser image, as well as a video, seen below, that talks about the car. The video actually reveals quite a bit of the car. It is covered in camouflage, but just the black-and-white vinyl wrap kind. It's also in bright daylight. Possibly the most distinctive part of the car's design is the wing shape that stretches across the top of the nose. It also has very aggressive-looking canards on the front corners. It doesn't look nearly as beautiful as the Mazda car, but if it's effective, who cares? The video also reveals that the engine in the ARX is based on the V6 from the TLX and MDX. When the car enters the IMSA series in January, it will be competing against Cadillac, Mazda, Nissan, and race car builders such as Oreca and Dallara. Acura will be the second company to use a V6 in the series after Nissan. Mazda uses a turbocharged four-cylinder, and Cadillac and the race car builders use V8s. Related Video: News Source: Acura, IMSA Acura Coupe Racing Vehicles

Acura replaces chief Accavitti with designer Ikeda

Acura is shaking up its senior leadership, as Honda ushers the current chief of its luxury division out the door and replaces him with a new one. Exiting stage left is Mike Accavitti, who held the reins at the premium automaker as its senior vice president and general manager of the Acura division. Taking his place will be Jon Ikeda, one of the Japanese automaker's most senior designers. Accavitti (pictured above at left) had been promoted to the job from his previous position as senior vice president of auto operations after Honda separated the Acura brand into its own division. He had previously served as a senior executive at Chrysler, rising up the ranks to run the Dodge brand, and joined Honda in 2011 as its chief marketing officer. At this point it remains unclear why Accavitti is leaving and where he might land, but Honda says he's leaving the company altogether. To replace Accavitti, Honda has named Jon Ikeda (pictured above at right), a veteran designer with the company. A graduate of the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA, Ikeda has worked for Honda on both sides of the Pacific since 1989. He previous headed up the design and product planning divisions at Honda's American R&D operations, and was instrumental in creating an independent design office for the Acura brand, separate from Honda's. This isn't the first time we've seen Accavitti replaced in his role as a senior executive by a design veteran. After only four months at CEO of the Dodge brand, he was replaced by Ralph Gilles, who retained his role as senior vice president of design for the entire Chrysler group in parallel. Gilles was ultimately replaced as head of Dodge as well, but was recently promoted to serve as head of design for Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. Related Video: Acura Announces Leadership Changes TORRANCE, Calif. July 27, 2015 – Acura today announced that Jon Ikeda has been promoted to Vice President and General Manager of the Acura Division of American Honda Motor Co., Inc. In this role, Ikeda will oversee all Acura brand activities including sales, marketing and parts and service. Ikeda was formerly Division Director of Auto Design at Honda R&D Americas, Inc. (HRA). He began his career at Honda in Japan in 1989, joining the advanced design studio in Tokyo, where he worked on the award-winning Honda FSX show car. After six years in Japan, he returned to Los Angeles in 1995, to continue his career at Honda R&D in Torrance, California.

Honda marks 20 million vehicles made in the USA

Japanese automakers manufacturing in the United States is nothing new. But it was in November of 1982 when the first Honda Accord rolled off the assembly line in Marysville, OH. It was the first Japanese vehicle assembled in the US, and in the nearly 32 years since, Honda has made 10 million Accords here for a total of 20 million cars manufactured in America - enough to span from New York to San Francisco twenty times. It's that double landmark which Honda is now celebrating.
Honda has come a long way in those three decades, keeping that original plant in Marysville on line while expanding to three more - in East Liberty, OH; Lincoln, AL; and Greensburg, IN - with a fifth plant (the Performance Manufacturing Center) opening on the same site in Marysville to build the Acura NSX next year. It also builds engines in Lincoln and in Anna, OH, and automatic transmissions at Russells Point, OH, and Tallapoosa, GA.
Between those seven sites, Honda produces 11 different models, including the Accord, Civic, Crosstour, CR-V, Pilot, Odyssey and Ridgeline as well as the Acura ILX, TL, RDX and MDX. Production keeps on ramping up as Honda produced a record 1.3 million vehicles in the US last year, 95 percent of which are sold in the US. Scope out the details in the press release below and click the image above to see it all laid out in a handy infographic.