Car Auto Magazine

When we heard that Acura would be launching another four-cylinder front-wheel-drive sedan, we couldn't help but ask why. Our cortexes fizzled at the repetitive notion of yet another high-revving Euro fighter from Honda, and when we heard that this new car, the TSX, would be but a tweaked version of the European and Japanese Accords, our tiny skulls nearly shattered from disbelief. Two Accords? Neither of them rear-wheel-drive? We wondered why Acura--the last of the Japanese upscale manufacturers to dispatch two cars to this overcrowded category--couldn't resist the pull of the segment-fragmentation chipper-shredder.

But "Why?" turns out to be the wrong question. Better to ask "When?" and "How much?" and "What took you so long?" Drive the TSX, and all doubts evaporate. The new sedan is easily the finest in the Acura range and a credible rival to Audi's A4, Mercedes-Benz's C-class, and, yes, even BMW's 3-series. These cars were catching a lot of upwardly mobile ex-Accord, and -RSX owners who felt they had no
Acura to buy, calling attention to the phantom void in Acura's lineup. "We felt we needed something smaller to go up against the Europeans, to bridge the gap between the RSX and the TL," says Acura product planner Jay Joseph.

The TSX uses tricks from both. It has a refined and enlarged version of the RSX's i-VTEC four-cylinder, and it cribs from the TL its chic interior, double-wishbone/multi-link suspension, and shocking value equation. The leather-clad TSX's only options are a navigation system and the choice of a six-speed manual or a five-speed automatic transmission.

We drove the navi-equipped, six-speed TSX. After an easy familiarization with the mini-home theater between the front seats (it has an eight-inch screen), we tore up the Pacific Coast Highway to Mulholland Drive. During slow driving, the car's clutch takeup and shifter efforts seemed a bit flimsy--out of sync with the strong, self-centered steering, the firm ride, and the robust brake-pedal feel. Issues of control harmony straightened out with a few carefully administered doses of speed. When the TSX is driven quickly, its chassis has an anticipatory quality that only the best and most driver-oriented sedans share; the car places itself on the road. Grip from the Michelins was astounding, forcing us to recheck mid-flight to ensure that the standard Vehicle Stability Assist had been well and truly garroted. Precise responses from the broadly powerful engine and drive-by-wire throttle resulted in briefly errant, quickly recalled rear-tire paths.

Control and restraint are key TSX themes. Its interior has a taut, dynamic edginess, as if it belonged to an Accord that had been through six weeks of basic training. The exterior, too, is drum-tight and high-toned, yet this may not have been what Acura was going for. Joseph said that people buy the cars in this class for emotional reasons, then pointed to the at-best-compulsive/at-worst-anonymous styling as one of these. We wondered what he'd been freebasing and where we might score some.

But it may be just as well that the TSX isn't an overt piece of draftsmanship. It needn't be in order to sell the mere 15,000 units per year Acura is intending. Besides, in the long run, stealth works best, especially when you're on Mulholland and you spot a 3-series up ahead.

Back in the 1980s, when Acura was just a babe in the woods, Honda's upscale brand sold its cars with the simple tagline "Precision crafted performance." But the ad campaign wasn't merely playing up the epistemological attraction of an invented name (Acura brings to mind accurate, which inspires pleasant thoughts of technological sophistication, superlative fit and finish, and bulletproof reliability). Acuras really were well-honed tools for the driving enthusiast-Honda greatness turned up to eleven, if you will. And although Madison Avenue is a fickle place, and "Precision crafted performance" long since has gone the way of "Fahrvergngen" and "This is not your father's Oldsmobile," the engineers at Honda are anything but fickle. Acura automobiles-from the most exotic offering, the aging NSX, to the most affordable, the RSX Type-S on these pages-are still paragons of mechanical precision and fine craftsmanship.

Introduced in the summer of 2001, the RSX is the successor to Acura's beloved Integra. It was met with some wariness (by us, at least), mostly because it eschewed a model name that had been around just long enough to achieve historic resonance. But at least the new car remained true to the mission of the original 1986 Integra: Provide a thoroughly engaging driving experience in a frugal-albeit premium-package.

The Integra's three generations saw, variously, two-door and four-door hatchback body styles as well as a traditional three-box sedan, but the RSX showed up as a hatchback coupe only (although Acura since has revisited the premium four-cylinder sedan market by way of the TSX). The base RSX rolls with a 160-horsepower, 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine and a five-speed manual gearbox or a five-speed manu-matic, but we chose the hotted-up Type-S model for our Four Seasons test. Following in the tracks of the screaming Integra Type-R, the Type-S packs a 2.0-liter four that uses Honda's i-VTEC variable valve timing to produce 200 horsepower at 7400 rpm and 142 pound-feet of torque at 6000 rpm. It is paired only with a six-speed manual transmission.

From the outset, we knew we'd made the right choice. Tipping the scales at a trim 2740 pounds, our test car clocked a 6.5-second sprint to 60 mph and ran the quarter-mile in 15.3 seconds at 94 mph. (That's about as quick as a V-8-engined Ford Mustang GT, but, very much unlike the GT, the Type-S will return an exemplary 24 mpg in town and 31 mpg on the highway.) During performance testing, technical editor Don Sherman noted, "Hints of torque steer are evident, but that's inevitable with so much energy going through the front tires."

Without exception, the six-speed gearbox was loved by everyone who used it. Although the engine's torque is modest, a 7900-rpm redline means the driver isn't constantly stirring the shifter to get things moving. Throws are slightly longer than those of Honda's similarly high-strung S2000 roadster, but they are accomplished with stupefying ease. So delicate were gearchanges that Sherman-perhaps a bit too accustomed to punching Corvettes and Vipers into gear-forecast an ugly future for our tester's first- and second-gear synchros. And yet after twelve months and 31,309 miles, his dire prediction failed to transpire. The RSX's gearbox was as light and tight on its last day as it was on its first. Associate editor Joe DeMatio summed it up in one word, "lovely," and road test coordinator Tony Quiroga asked, "Could this be the best shifter in a front-wheel-drive car?" Yes, we found, it could be. And it is.

The torque-sensing, variable-assist rack-and-pinion steering was appreciated, by and large, for its BMW-like heft and quick ratio (quicker than the last Integra's) but nonetheless inspired some grousing for its questionable feel. Sherman: "Nervous on center; requires small but constant corrections to maintain a straight path." Executive editor Mark Gillies, who initially anointed the RSX "the heir to the Honda CRX," later tempered his praise by writing: "As a steering fetishist, my biggest letdown with the RSX is the steering's poor on-center feel and nasty dead spot." Senior editor Eddie Alterman, never one to mince words, noted: "I'd like to point out that this car's steering sucks. Oh, it feels good when you've got it pointed straight, but it's completely artificial in quick evasive maneuvers."

"There are two vehicles that I know really, really well," Gary Evert says as we pitch the RDX into a downhill left-hander in Mount Tamalpais State Park north of San Francisco. "The RDX and the BMW X3."

There was plenty for Evert, the RDX's chief engineer, to learn from the X3, both from the BMW's achievements and its failures. For example, the X3's six-cylinder engines position it too closely in performance and price to the X5, so Acura decided to restrict its V-6 to the bigger MDX. The RDX instead gets Honda's first production-car turbo engine in the United States. Based on the 2.4-liter unit from the TSX sedan, the new turbo four produces 240 hp and 260 lb-ft of torque.

This engine is a winner, and its debut will prove to be a watershed moment for the hard-core Honda enthusiasts who can rattle off engine codes as easily as their birth dates. Turbo lag barely exists, power delivery is linear and strong, and fuel economy is estimated at 19/24 mpg city/highway. Our test vehicle's engine emitted a low-frequency drone when we decelerated, but Evert assured us that final production tweaks of the ECU would take care of that. After we headed out of San Francisco, the RDX surged through the Golden Gate National Recreation Area's hills with such ease, we actually forgot that there was a turbocharger under the hood.

Acura mates the turbo engine only to a five-speed automatic, but paddle shifters rip off crisp gearchanges. The standard all-wheel-drive system is adapted from the RL sedan. It delivers up to 70 percent of the torque to the rear axle, where it can be diverted entirely to either rear wheel, an effect that is easily discerned if you really push the RDX through a corner. The Acura might not be as sporty as the X3, but its accurate steering and buttoned-down body control are joined by a firm, reasonably supple ride that doesn't beat you up like the overly stiff BMW's does.

The RDX will share its body and chassis with the new Honda CR-V, but it won't share its all-wheel-drive system. The turbo engine also will be an RDX exclusive for now, but it certainly deserves to spread to other vehicles in the Acura and Honda stables.