Acura |
To help you find the exact Acura car resource you are looking for, we have a dedicated website for each model of the most popular Acura range.
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Acura also known as Akyura in Japanese is part of the automotive manufacturer Honda Motor Company, they released a certified luxury brand of vehicles in early 1986 to compete with other popular brands on the market such as Cadillac, Infiniti and Lexus, This was the first time the United States had Luxury Performance vehicles from a Japanese company. Acura was also the first Japanese brand of luxury vehicles to succeed outside of Japan.
Shortly after Acura introduced the V6 Legend and the 4-cylinder Integra other luxury Japanese brands such as the Nissan Infiniti range and the Toyota Lexus range started to spring up in North America.
Acura Introduced a 2 door sports car with 276 break horse power called the NSX in 1989. The NSX was able to compete with a Ferrari or Porsche making it the first Japanese car to achieve such status to top things off the car had excellent reliability and superb engineered quality.
Acura''s sales started to drop in the mid 90''s due to the range of vehicles becoming less innovating and inspiring. To make things worse in 1996 Acura released the 3.5 RL this was built with the intentions of replacing the much loved Legend but was not taken well by the public. At this time Lexus had released their more powerful LS 400. Acura could do little to compete with the likes of Audi, BMW and Lexus. The NSX also started to see the knock on effects of Acura''s sales decline.
In 90''s Acura targeted a younger age group with which they gained prominence, this audience were interesting in tuning their vehicles. Honda had already become a well known name with its easy to tune engines and this had filtered through to the Acura audience. One of the most popular vehicles to tune was the Acura Integra. Acura have maintained their reputation of easy to tune vehicles to this very day with the RSX and TSX.
Acura decided to start the new millennium off with revitalized versions of some of its range. The Acura 3.2 TL was redesigned and introduced at a very competitive price with a whole range of standard features compared to the BMW 3 Series, Infiniti I30 and Lexus ES300.
Next on the list was the Acura''s SUV the MDX this model was based on the Honda Odyssey and was built to replace the Acura SLX which was sluggish in sales and often referred to as a re-badge of the Isuzu Trooper. The new MDX had very little off-road capability and was aimed at the luxury SUV market after realising that most of these vehicles rarely left the main highways. The MDX got great reviews when compared to others in the market at that time.
In 2004 Acura released the new TL with 270 break horse power and a V6 engine. The highlight of this vehicle was the introduction of a 6-speed manual transmission. Sales increased dramatically for Acura. In response to this Acura immediately released a model called the TSX this would replace the 4-cylinder Integra. The TSX was the market equivalent of the European Honda Accord. The TSX was a cheaper alternative to the BMW 3 Series and was loaded with extras and features.
In 2004 Acura released the new RL with 300 break horse power and a V6 engine. The RL had an innovative new system call the Super Handling All-Wheel Drive also for short known as the SH-AWD. This systems had the capability of shifting most of the power produced by the RL to just one wheel in just a turn.
Acura may be back at the drawing board once again though as many have criticised Acura''s lack of rear wheel drive V8''s. Acura and Saab are the only Luxury manufacturers that offer FWD exclusively.
A smaller SUV called the Acura RDX was introduced in 2006 this featured the popular SH-AWD system and was powered by a 4-cylinder engine with 240 break horse power.
Later in 2006 Acura release a redesign of the MDX with 300 break horse power a V6 engine and the SH-AWD system.
The NSX sales had slowed down in 2005 so much so that it was discontinued and replaced with the promise of a V10 model known as the HSC sometime between 2007 and 2009.
Acura have made it clear that comfort and adventure in luxurious cars, is only just the beginning of what''s to come. |
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