Referring to the 1961 Ferrari 250GT California he “borrowed” from his best friend’s father, the somehow sagacious and always rash Ferris Bueller eloquently proclaimed in the 1986 flick, “It is so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up.”
Trying to apply that drooling dialogue to anything but a sexy exotic becomes a stretch. In the Acura lineup, the only candidate for this sort of lust is the NSX sports car. Not that all premium Hondas aren’t “choice” automobiles-it’s just that none but the NSX delivers the prestige and performance comparable to a Ferrari’s.
But today, when so many cars are well beyond good (trust us-narrowing down a 10Best ballot is painful), the term “choice” seems appropriate not just for exotics but also for those select cars that deliver something special, something intangible.
Take Acura’s new sports sedan, the TSX. It’s a car that distances itself from its rivals not by performance numbers (although they’re generally as good) but rather by how it performs. The TSX goes about its business so smoothly and so silkily that precision could be its middle name. And it is targeted squarely at those Gen Xers who so fondly remember the words of the wise Ferris.
That now 30-something demographic-a majority married, more than half males, pulling in about $80,000 a year, according to Acura-is whom the brand is missing with the just-out-of-college RSX and the wife-and-kids TL. So enter the gap-filling TSX, a $26,990 rebadged European-market Honda Accord equipped with either the six-speed manual tested here or a five-speed automatic with a manual-control feature. At that price, Acura’s demographic prediction makes sense. TSX buyers won’t be the same guys dropping 30 large on Mitsubishi Evos or Subaru STis-what wife would allow her husband to buy a car with a wing the size of an ironing board? We all know who makes those calls.
Rather, the 15,000 TSXs allotted for the U.S. in the first year will likely be cross-shopped with the V-6-powered Mazda 6 s and, if the “A” badge holds the elite kind of water Acura believes it does, the Lexus IS300 and the European status symbols, the Audi A4 1.8T, the BMW 325i, the Saab 9-3, and the recently introduced Mercedes C230 Kompressor sedan. But only the Mazda can match the Acura’s equipment level at a similar price.
For just under $27,000, the TSX comes loaded. That means perforated leather seats (heated up front), dual-zone automatic climate control, a power sunroof, a 360-watt stereo with an in-dash six-CD changer, high-intensity-discharge headlights, and 17-inch wheels. Tack those features onto an Audi or BMW, and you’ll understand the meaning of base price. The only option on the TSX is a $2000 navigation system with voice recognition.
Sit behind the TSX’s leather-wrapped, three-spoke steering wheel, and it appears as if all the money went into the materials and the fluidity of the parts. The sumptuous leather, the tasteful metallic accents, the LED gauges, and the top-grade plastics are befitting a car costing twice as much. The dash covering is made sans PVC, a material that can wreak havoc on quality control, and instead is manufactured using a high-caliber spray-formed urethane skin technology. All the materials scream luxury, and all the parts whisper smooth. Every knob, switch, and moving part seems to be glazed with Teflon. In fact, the moving parts of the tilting and telescoping steering wheel are coated with a resin for ease of operation.
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