2010 Acura on 2040-cars

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Junkyard Gem: 1987 Acura Legend Sedan

Honda beat Toyota and Nissan in the race to bring a luxury marque to North America, introducing us to the Acura brand for the 1986 model year. Acura shoppers could buy a luxed-up, more powerful Civic (the Integra) that year, while the real high-rollers went for a smooth-looking, V6-powered luxury sedan co-developed by Rover and Honda: the Legend. That was quite a leap for a company that had been selling tiny cars with two-cylinder motorcycle engines just 15 years earlier, but the 1973-1985 period had been spectacularly good times for Honda. The early Legend sold very well in California, and that's where I found this high-mile '87 a couple of months back. While the Legend had the same underlying chassis structure and engine family as the Rover 800 (known as the Sterling in North America), the Honda-grade build quality and non-Lucas electrical components of the Legend meant that it outlasted its Rover cousins by decades and hundreds of thousands of miles. This one didn't quite make it to 300,000 miles, but 281,032 miles blows away the readings I see on most 1980s junkyard cars not made by Mercedes-Benz. It's hard to imagine a prestigious luxury sedan with three pedals these days, but plenty of the early Legends were sold here with the five-speed manual transmission. Starting in the early 1990s, though, nearly all U.S.-market Legends had slushboxes (though the manual could be had all the way through the final Legends of 1995). Every Legend ever made came with a V6 engine. This car has a 2.5-liter DOHC rated at 151 horsepower, while the 1987 Legend coupe got a 2.7 making 161 horses. Other than the worn-out front seats, the interior in this car looked fairly decent when it arrived in its final parking space. Most super-high-mile cars I see in junkyards aren't very trashed-looking, presumably due to owners who took good care of them for decades (I do see the occasional exception to this rule, of course). The body shows no rust, as you'd expect in California, but the paint hasn't fared so well over its 33 years. It's the performance sedan making European automakers uncomfortable. Unlike many of the wild Japanese-market car ads of the 1980s, Honda pitched the JDM Legend in a most dignified manner. Featured Gallery Junked 1987 Acura Legend Sedan View 15 Photos Auto News Acura Automotive History Classics Acura Legend

1997 Acura SLX gets 350 actual Acura horsepower for Radwood

For the Radwood Orange County, Calif., car show, a show themed around 1980s and 1990s cars, Acura is bringing a variety of its original models including a 1991 NSX and a 1986 Integra. The company is also bringing something obscure, a 1997 Acura SLX, the brand's first SUV, offered from model years 1996 to 1999. In some ways, it's something Acura might not want to highlight, since it's really a rebadged Isuzu Trooper, just as the original Honda Passport was a rebadged Isuzu Rodeo. But this SLX is special; it has real Acura power under the hood. The project was led by Acura engineers and Pikes Peak racing drivers James Robinson, Paul Hubers and Jordan Guitar, and the frame and body restoration as well as the powertrain swap was done entirely in-house at Honda R&D in Ohio, according to Acura rep Andrew Quillin. The team pulled out the original naturally aspirated 3.2-liter V6 that made just 190 horsepower and 188 pound-feet of torque, and dropped in a turbocharged 2.0-liter inline-four from a new Acura RDX. That engine also received a new intake, exhaust, turbo and ECU tune, which brought power up to an estimated 350 horsepower and 340 pound-feet of torque, similar to the Graham Rahal Performance RDX. Not only that, but the old-school four-wheel-drive system and live rear axle were dropped in favor of the RDX's indpendent suspension and torque vectoring "Super Handling All-Wheel Drive." "Dropped in" is a mischaracterization, though, as Acura had to weld new subframes front and rear to the existing frame to get the transverse engine and modern suspension to fit. Acura was careful to keep the SLX looking as close to the original as possible. On the outside, Acura repainted the SLX in a modern red paint available on the RDX, but retained the champagne lower moldings. The stock wheels were replaced with 17-inch Fifteen52 wheels, but they have a very similar design and finish to the original wheels. A hard-shell spare tire cover was added, and a simple "SH-AWD" badge on the back is the only hint at what's under the body. The interior was restored at the company's L.A. design studio, where the upholstery was redone in a gray "gathered" leather like you would have seen when it was new. A bit of gray wood trim updates the interior slightly. The RDX's push-button starter and shifter buttons have been added to the center console, shift paddles behind the original steering wheel, and an aftermarket instrument cluster mounted to the steering column.

Acura TLX caught naked in production guise, can you spot the differences?

Acura doesn't tend to do concept cars these days that don't foreshadow a specific upcoming production model. The ZDX prototype of 2010 previewed the production version, as did the ILX and RLX showcars of 2012 and the MDX of 2013. The NSX concept is on its way to production, as the SUV-X concept is likely to do as well in the coming years. So when Acura revealed the TLX prototype at the Detroit Auto Show a few months ago, we all but knew it would only be a matter of time before that, too, would be produced. And here it is.
Spied all but completely undisguised while undergoing testing, this pair of TLX prototypes (one in white, one in black) looks almost identical to the show car. You might spot a few minor tweaks here and there - the strip of LEDs in the lower front bumper have been replaced by round fog lamps and some of the chrome accents are missing - but by and large, we're looking at the same vehicle we saw in Detroit earlier this year.
The finished production version of the TLX is expected to debut at the New York Auto Show next month, after which it will replace both the TSX and the TL, slotting in between the smaller ILX and the larger RLX in Acura's sedan lineup.