Introducing The All-New 2021 Acura TLX and TLX Type S

[David70]

Strange how they talk about the chassis being Acura specific then the trouble they went to to get weight off the nose

"Front-to-rear weight balance is also improved by an extensive use of aluminum, including the front bumper, hood, front fenders and front damper mounts, in addition to locating the 12-volt battery in the trunk."

good ideas but with the amount of work they did it will still primarily drive the front wheels (rear wheels as needed), then be nose heavy and mid to high $40k's? Too bad they didn't go RWD.

[Red Bread]

Originally Posted by David70

Strange how they talk about the chassis being Acura specific then the trouble they went to to get weight off the nose

"Front-to-rear weight balance is also improved by an extensive use of aluminum, including the front bumper, hood, front fenders and front damper mounts, in addition to locating the 12-volt battery in the trunk."

good ideas but with the amount of work they did it will still primarily drive the front wheels (rear wheels as needed), then be nose heavy and mid to high $40k's? Too bad they didn't go RWD.

Meh. Honda is good at fwd. BMW is good at rwd, it's not like they'd ever make a stupid fwd sedan, oh wait...

[Dog Face Pony Soldier]

Originally Posted by David70

Strange how they talk about the chassis being Acura specific then the trouble they went to to get weight off the nose

"Front-to-rear weight balance is also improved by an extensive use of aluminum, including the front bumper, hood, front fenders and front damper mounts, in addition to locating the 12-volt battery in the trunk."

good ideas but with the amount of work they did it will still primarily drive the front wheels (rear wheels as needed), then be nose heavy and mid to high $40k's? Too bad they didn't go RWD.

Acura likes their SH-AWD system. Even if they did build a RWD version, they'd still have to offer a SH-AWD version. When you consider that, it's easy to see the logic in keeping this car SH-AWD only.

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by F30ZHP

Holy crap! I did not know that!

I think it was Acura's shot at Audi. Audi used to set up their cars like that before the A-series came out if I remember by automotive history correctly. The Vigor was a neat car.

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by jstein55

And the Vigor har a 5-cylinder I believe!

It did.

Cars were so much fun 30 years ago. Saabs were different. Audis were different. BMWs were awesome. Benzes were classy. Ford made cool cars like the Mustang SVO, the Thunderbird Turbo Coupe, the Ford Escort GT (not the real European one though). Dodge had the Omni GLH (Goes Like Hell). Honda made the Del Sol.

Now it's all just transverse-mounted 4-cylinder turbos on a common chassis.... Oh, and AWD, and big phone screen with Aps! Snore.

The advent of computer controlled braking (i.e. dynamic stability control) almost any car can be made to handle like BMWs used to. But BMW developed a great chassis and suspension to make its car handle. Even BMW has gone FWD because weight balance doesn't matter anymore, computers keep the car on the road.

[David70]

Originally Posted by Red Bread

Meh. Honda is good at fwd. BMW is good at rwd, it's not like they'd ever make a stupid fwd sedan, oh wait...

Them building it is fine with me, I won't buy it. Once I get to the price range they want for the BMW FWD I would just pay the extra and get a far better platform. I would also buy a FWD just not paying premium/luxury prices to get it. No engineer ever said they would like to start with a FWD platform to build the best sedan, they said it would be the most practical and budget friendly.

Interesting how upset people got when BMW did it but for Acura it is expected and defended.

Originally Posted by Dog Face Pony Soldier

Acura likes their SH-AWD system. Even if they did build a RWD version, they'd still have to offer a SH-AWD version. When you consider that, it's easy to see the logic in keeping this car SH-AWD only.

If they built on a RWD platform, then made an AWD option, instead of sending "up to 70% to the rear wheels", they would make this the standard and send power to the fronts when needed. I am not against AWD, just making it FWD and sometimes sending power to the rear (your buying a car that is almost always a FWD) then the weight distribution issues that come with this setup.

My wife has an Acura TSX, purchased new, at the time it was a couple of thousand more than a similarly equipped Honda Accord. At this price level and what she wanted out of a car Acura had a good option. At the $40k-$50k price range there are better options.

I put Lincoln, Acura and Volvo in a similar category, you get all of the "luxury" you would ever want and it comes with a reduced price over most of the other luxury brands, with this none of them are willing to spend the money for the structure to build a great handling car and they only offer FWD with the option to sent power to the rear when needed. Good for packaging, reducing cost, mpg, not performance.

[heavyD^2]

Originally Posted by Efthreeoh

It did.

Cars were so much fun 30 years ago. Saabs were different. Audis were different. BMWs were awesome. Benzes were classy. Ford made cool cars like the Mustang SVO, the Thunderbird Turbo Coupe, the Ford Escort GT (not the real European one though). Dodge had the Omni GLH (Goes Like Hell). Honda made the Del Sol.

Now it's all just transverse-mounted 4-cylinder turbos on a common chassis.... Oh, and AWD, and big phone screen with Aps! Snore.

The advent of computer controlled braking (i.e. dynamic stability control) almost any car can be made to handle like BMWs used to. But BMW developed a great chassis and suspension to make its car handle. Even BMW has gone FWD because weight balance doesn't matter anymore, computers keep the car on the road.

BMW went FWD because it was convenient with Mini Cooper FWD architecture in-house and they needed a vehicle to compete with Audi and MB in the entry level market. That's all, nothing more. Also too many people focus on the shining stars of the 80's (IMO the 2nd worst decade ever for automobiles after the 70's) and 90's conveniently forgetting how bad most vehicle handled and drove in those days. Entry level vehicles of today such as a Mazda 3 would drive circles around a lot of sporty models from the 90's. I owned a del sol VTEC in the 90's and while I appreciate the era before the beancounters took over Honda, the only thing memorable about that car was the B16A. The domestics in particular totally mailed in the 80's and 90's largely producing garbage that will not ever be missed.

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by heavyD^2

BMW went FWD because it was convenient with Mini Cooper FWD architecture in-house and they needed a vehicle to compete with Audi and MB in the entry level market. That's all, nothing more. Also too many people focus on the shining stars of the 80's (IMO the 2nd worst decade ever for automobiles after the 70's) and 90's conveniently forgetting how bad most vehicle handled and drove in those days. Entry level vehicles of today such as a Mazda 3 would drive circles around a lot of sporty models from the 90's. I owned a del sol VTEC in the 90's and while I appreciate the era before the beancounters took over Honda, the only thing memorable about that car was the B16A. The domestics in particular totally mailed in the 80's and 90's largely producing garbage that will not ever be missed.

Well, I'm in my late 50's and been a car guy since I was 6 or so (my dad had q 1965 Mustang, Black over red with a 4 speed manual transmission, so how could I not be). I have good memory all cars from the mid 1970's through the mid 1990's quite well. When you say garbage, you are taking the cars out of context and prevailing market and economic factors. But there were plenty of good cars in the mid 1980's and into the early 1990's; you just can't take them out of context.

And of course a modern Mazda would drive circles around a car from the 1990's. The technology has advanced greatly in 20 years and so have economic conditions for affordability, let alone long-ass financing deals. Leasing has been a boon for the car industry and model un-diversification (my original point) as brought profitability. Not all cars were great in the 1980s thru the mid 1990's The E21 and E30 with the M10 were slower than dogshit (I drove both when they were new). The E30 really didn't wake up as a chassis until BMW put the M20B25 in 1988 in the USA market. The M20 ETA E30 was pathetic. The M42 318i of 1990 was decent, but a dog compared to the M20B25 version. The BMWs of that era handled good though and had great brakes despite not being very fast.

But back then BMW paid serious attention to weight balance. It was important enough that all their marketing materials showcased it, and every magazine article spent at least a paragraph on the subject. Any FWD hatchback of that era with a transverse drivetrain packed under the hood, could not handle like a BMW. Get one in the snow, and the things just rotated around the heavy frontend. All that is easily cured with traction control and stability control (all brought by an ABS module and torque control with 4WD), which as I remember it, Ford basically pioneered to keep the Explorer upright. The F30 and variants have barely any BMW DNA in the chassis. I've not yet driven the G20, the magazines say it is better.

You are right, BMW leverages the Mini for it's FWD architecture. It's hilarious now to hear BMW tout the packaging advantages of a FWD car that Sir Alec Issigonis figured out in the 1950s and every manufacturer besides BMW adopted over time. Even GM built large FWD cars as early as the mid 1960's. Yet, I remember vividly barely over a decade ago BMW touting it was the only remaining manufacturer that did not compromise its vehicles by platform sharing like every other manufacture does. LOL, those ads are long gone in relevance. BMW in the 1970's and forward was adamant that a 50/50 weight-balance RWD platform was the "ultimate" handing machine. The E30 took on AWD to fight against Audi's mid-80's famous Quattro rally dominance and resultant marketing sales pitch. The E36 platform abandoned AWD, probably due to the expense of developing the front-drive.

[F30ZHP]

Originally Posted by Efthreeoh

I think it was Acura's shot at Audi. Audi used to set up their cars like that before the A-series came out if I remember by automotive history correctly. The Vigor was a neat car.

It was a neat car. I remember wanting one.

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by F30ZHP

It was a neat car. I remember wanting one.

I did too, but I had a 1st gen Integra and the Vigor was out of my price range at the time. Neat car. I don't think it sold well for Acura.

[SteveinArizona]

Originally Posted by Red Bread

Meh. Honda is good at fwd. BMW is good at rwd, it's not like they'd ever make a stupid fwd sedan, oh wait...

It doesn't bother me so much that BMW made the 235 as much as it bothers me that it made it as a 2 series.

I can just imagine the following scenario: customer goes into a BMW dealership and says he wants four doors but he has seen great reviews of the BMW 2 series. The SA says "You are in luck; BMW now makes a 2 series sedan" and sells him/her this vehicle that is completely unrelated to the rest of the 2 series (if anything, it is really a 1 series car). Eventually, when he figures out that this is not a four door version of a 240i he feels cheated. As he should.

And...yes...customers should go into dealerships having done their research but that doesn't always happen.

[F30ZHP]

Originally Posted by Efthreeoh

I did too, but I had a 1st gen Integra and the Vigor was out of my price range at the time. Neat car. I don't think it sold well for Acura.

I had a 1995 Acura Integra GS-R at the time. Loved that car.

[ntg44]

Originally Posted by Mingwan

Was expecting to be disappointed, but was not.

My sentiments exactly. Most interesting car they've put out aside from the NSX in a very long time. My initial impressions are very good, although, they really need to deliver on the performance for this to be worth considering. This is where the Japanese usually let down. I'm not saying I'm looking for a rocket ship, but low 12 second 1/4 mi would make me pretty interested.

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by SteveinArizona

It doesn't bother me so much that BMW made the 235 as much as it bothers me that it made it as a 2 series.

I can just imagine the following scenario: customer goes into a BMW dealership and says he wants four doors but he has seen great reviews of the BMW 2 series. The SA says "You are in luck; BMW now makes a 2 series sedan" and sells him/her this vehicle that is completely unrelated to the rest of the 2 series (if anything, it is really a 1 series car). Eventually, when he figures out that this is not a four door version of a 240i he feels cheated. As he should.

And...yes...customers should go into dealerships having done their research but that doesn't always happen.

This is why it's gotten to the point I really don't even follow BMW anymore. Once they introduced a BMW with FWD and now the 3-series doesn't even offer a manual transmission, they are nothing more than General Motors with about the same build quality. I really have zero interest in the current BMW lineup.

The crap about them not compromising by sharing platforms, I took that shit seriously. Apparently BMW didn't. LOL

[supra93]

https://www.acura.com/news-and-press...GeneralNewsRss

https://www.autoblog.com/2020/07/30/...lx-horsepower/

[freakystyly]

One design trend that no one seems to mention. Those stupid radar package plastic blocks taking up space on grilles. Has anyone else noticed them? They drive me nuts on otherwise good looking cars. Is that just lazy design or is there a reason for them to be so glaringly out of place?

Good looking cars otherwise, big step up from the bird beak.

[Burrcold]

355hp...decent but they should have come out swinging.

[jlstyle]

Last Acura that looked good was 90s Legend, CL-S, TL and of course original NSX. Since introduction of their infamous beak design front, it has gone down hill fast, real fast

[drF80]

Originally Posted by jlstyle

Last Acura that looked good was 90s Legend, CL-S, TL and of course original NSX. Since introduction of their infamous beak design front, it has gone down hill fast, real fast

My experience with Acura, 2012 MDX:
- multiple trips (from TX) to Florida, to Colorado every winter, 5 of us
- two teens "owned" it from the age of 15 through going to college (first one)
- used and abused to the max
- my wife will have a 3-month lease gap and will use it as her standard vehicle
- absolutely ZERO issues
- some things replaced (all brakes and fluid flush at the dealer: $349)

[AlexFL]

Genesis G70

[ShocknAwe]

I dunno about the rest of you but I'm super pumped for this.

Car looks great with some real effort to throw back to the old TypeS styling and if the SH-AWD is tuneable to be rear biased it will be an absolute hoot. Too bad there won't be a manual or DCT.

[Tyresian]

Originally Posted by ShocknAwe

I dunno about the rest of you but I'm super pumped for this.

Car looks great with some real effort to throw back to the old TypeS styling and if the SH-AWD is tuneable to be rear biased it will be an absolute hoot. Too bad there won't be a manual or DCT.

I'm excited as well.

Acura / Honda has fantastic reliability and getting that long-term reliability with a good amount of power at a lower price than the higher end luxury brands is exactly what they are about.

I do hope TLX is fun to drive. I really loved my 2005 TL. The 2010 TL SH-AWD I had was definitely more luxurious but lost some of the fun.

Of course this car keeps getting bigger and bigger so I shouldn't hold my breath. But I'm glad to see them try something better than the same old bland they've been serving the past 10 years.

It is too bad they didn't stick closer to the Type S Concept but hey, it is still closer than their previous concepts so that's something good.