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2019 Acura NSX vs. 1991 Acura NSX | Respect your elders

A car that forces the competition to head back to the drawing board does not come around often, especially when that competition happens to be Ferrari. Honda achieved such a feat back in 1991 when the original NSX was set loose in the supercar world. Not only did the NSX smack its contemporaries down in terms of performance and technological prowess, it also forced the Italians to make supercars with some semblance of reliability and manners. Spend only a few moments in an original NSX, and its specialness is palpable. The lack of power steering is acutely noticeable at low speed as I roll over little cracks and dips in the road, while the sticky rubber chucks small rocks up into the wheel wells. A near 360-degree view is at my disposal with the bubble-like canopy, and the ground right in front of the nose is visible from my vantage point. This is what control feels like, and we haven't even gotten to the reverie-inducing VTEC noises getting piped right into our eardrums yet. There are no dials to change the throttle response, no buttons to make the steering artificially heavy, no shift paddles behind the wheel to tell a computer to swap cogs. To my right is a manual shifter that can legitimately be described as perfect. This is a 1991 Acura NSX, and it is glorious. For some of the reasons I've briefly described, and plenty more, this car has reached legend status amongst enthusiasts. In the early 2000s it was a sales disaster, outgunned by pretty much every other supercar in the space. Honda/Acura was only working with a 3.2-liter V6 making 290 horsepower when that car finally met its maker after the 2005 model year. As collectable modern classics, the relatively low power output doesn't seem to bother folks spending close to, and over, six digits on low-mileage examples of these cars. What changed? Well, the passage of time tends to be the biggest factor in these things. Also, there's a new NSX out there, reminding the world that the old one exists. And just like when Acura discontinued the original, the new one is mighty expensive, selling in extremely low numbers, and generally regarded as lesser than other options in its class. This time around it has to deal with standout cars like the 911 GT3, McLaren 570S and Audi R8 V10. But perhaps even worse than that, the new NSX must withstand comparisons to the original. Can you think of any other legendary Japanese car with a similar image problem today? Yeah, the Toyota Supra.

2015 Acura TLX is all too familiar, despite its new tricks [w/videos]

I'm confident in saying that the 2015 Acura TLX, revealed today at the New York Auto Show, will be a perfectly nice car to drive. It'll be nice to sit in, with plenty of luxurious amenities. It'll be... fine. And for Acura, "fine" is apparently good enough.
I say that because while the TLX is an all-new offering (it replaces both the TL and TSX), it hardly shakes up the Acura formula we've come to accept over the past few years. It looks like everything else in the automaker's lineup, complete with the neat LED headlamps and signature beaked grille. Power comes from either a 2.4-liter naturally aspirated inline-four with 206 horsepower, or a 3.5-liter V6 with 290 hp - engines we've tested in countless other Honda/Acura products. The front-wheel-drive version uses the Precision All-Wheel Steer (P-AWS) from the RLX, and high-end V6 models use the Super-Handling All-Wheel Drive (SH-AWD) that we've enjoyed across the rest of the Acura range. Really, there's nothing to write home about here, except maybe, how that power is sent to the wheels.
Acura is finally - finally - moving beyond the world of the six-speed transmission, offering a new eight-speed, dual-clutch gearbox with the 2.4-liter engine, and a swanky new nine-speed automatic with the 3.5-liter V6. This is arguably the biggest news surrounding the TLX, though do note, fuel economy hasn't vastly been improved in the process. The TLX 2.4 musters up 24 miles per gallon in the city and 35 mpg highway, while the front-drive V6 is rated at 21/34 mpg. Optioning for the V6 SH-AWD reduces things to 21/31 mpg.

Inside Honda's ghost town for testing autonomous cars

On the edge of the San Francisco suburb of Concord, California sits a ghost town. Dilapidated buildings and cracked roads are framed by overgrowth and slightly askew street signs. The decommissioned five acre portion of the Concord Naval Weapons Station that once housed military personnel and their families is now home to squirrels, jack rabbits, wild turkeys and Honda's mysterious testing lab for autonomous vehicles. This former town within a Naval base – now dubbed "GoMentum Station" – is the perfect testing ground for Honda's self-driving cars. An almost turn-key solution to the problem of finding somewhere to experiment with autonomous vehicle inside an urban area. Thanks to the GoMentum Station, the automaker has access to 20 miles of various road types, intersections and infrastructure exactly like those found in the real world. Just, you know, without all the people getting in the way. While the faded lane markers and cracked asphalt might initially make it difficult for the car to figure out what's going on around it, that's exactly what you want when training a self-driving system. Many roads in the real world are also in dire need of upkeep. Just because autonomous vehicles are hitting the streets doesn't mean the funding needed to fix all the potholes and faded lane markers will magically appear. The real world doesn't work that way and the robot cars that will eventually make our commutes less of a headache will need to be aware of that. Plus, it's tougher to train a car to drive downtown than to barrel down the highway at 80 miles per hour. A company is going to want to get as much practice as possible. While semi-autonomous driving on the everyone-going-the-same-way-at-a-constant-speed freeway is already a reality, navigating in an urban environment is far more complex. If you've driven on the streets of Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Chicago or Seattle you know that driving downtown takes far more concentration than cruising down the interstate. With all that in mind, Honda's tricked out Acura RLX did a good job during an (admittedly very controlled) hands-free demo. It didn't hit either of the pedestrians walking across its path. It stopped at stop signs and even maneuvered around a mannequin situated in the middle of the road. The reality is, watching a car drive around the block and safely avoid stuff is boring. Not to metion, Google has been doing this for a while in the real world.