Road Test
“Drat!” we imagine them saying around the Cadillac water cooler. “Acura beat us to the 2012 CTS!”
Where did this come from? Since the pert little RSX of 2002, Honda’s Acura division has been shoveling ever deeper into the styling mush of confused grilles and flabby flanks (doubters, please see the RDX, MDX, and TSX). Just when we stopped caring where this sequence would lead, we get this fascinating TL, decisively carved to appeal to your inner Batman.
Bruce Wayne, your car is ready.
Finally, an Acura sculpted front to back with a single theme in mind, rakish, ominous, one step short of menacing. If ever there was a car meant to look sinister in the images transmitted from a Predator drone circling overhead, it’s the 2009 Acura TL. This is brave, and the more we look, the more we see a breakthrough design.
Judging from his off-duty ride, Mr. Wayne’s taste runs more toward all-weather sure-footedness than pure performance. And he has high expectations for quality and comfort.
We’re focused on the top-dog TL packing Super Handling All-Wheel Drive, abbreviated “SH-AWD” in chrome letters on the decklid. The optional Technology package includes nav with an eight-inch screen, a reverse camera, voice recognition, hard-drive media storage, and perforated leather seats. Our test car had the maximum-performance tire option—summer-rated 245/40ZR-19 Michelin Pilot Sport PS2s—available only with SH-AWD. Cha-ching, that’ll be $43,995.
You could spend much less. The good-dog TL, the base front-driver, starts at $35,715. Wisely, we think, it’s available with only the 3.5-liter V-6 of 280 horsepower, thereby limiting the TL’s well-known torque-steer recidivism. The top-dog SH-AWD version comes amped up with a 3.7-liter variant of the same all-aluminum powerplant, whirring out 305 horsepower at 6200 rpm. Either way, a five-speed automatic is the only choice, and both dogs get sequential-shift paddles behind the fat-rimmed wheel. A manual will be available in SH-AWD models for 2010.
There’s a helicopter mood about the TL’s cockpit: a mosaic of black buttons—dozens of them—marked precisely in white and grouped around two central knobs, a big one below for twisting, turning, and toggling around the screen, a small one above it for entertainment on/off/volume. You’ll need training before lifting off, preferably a few hours of familiarization when you needn’t keep your eyes on the road. Time in other Acura or Honda models helps, but each one has its peculiarities. The good news is the system avoids detouring you through the menu hell of BMWs and Jaguars.
This top dog’s personality is athletic, but it’s never a jock. Call it quick and mannerly. Speed in the quarter-mile is an excellent indicator of a car’s actual power to weight. By today’s standards, anything sub-100 mph doesn’t make the fast-car cut. This TL checks in at 97 mph—decent, no better. Elapsed time is testimony to traction as much as to engine vigor. The TL grips like Krylon, as you would expect of all-wheel drive. So the time slip shows an ET of 14.8 seconds, with a 0-to-60 along the way of six seconds flat.
