ACURA RL: UNDER THE RADAR

[dascrow]

Top of the line, medium luxury, solid ride, advanced cruise control

In over-the-road reality, which means the reality of driving nearly 1,000 miles in a couple of days, you learn many things about the 2007 Acura RL, but the two points that really stand out are these: this $50,000-plus mid-luxury cruiser attracts almost zero attention (that can be good or bad, depending on your ego), and it is an extremely competent road-burner that allows you to feel quite fresh even after more than 400 miles of storm-lashed interstate traffic.

I used a borrowed dark red RL to go down to Pasadena recently to see the new 2008 Lexus LS600h L, the big $104,000 (base price) hybrid luxury sedan. It costs twice as much as the Acura and I'm not sure it's twice as good.
The RL is the latest version of Acura's top-of-the-line sedan that started in 1986, when it was called the Legend. The Legend lasted up through the 2004 model year, a rather comfortable but sedate (and sedate-looking) people-hauler that didn't really race anyone's motor (hybrid or not) and was replaced with the RL, another kind of bland but competent sedan that held Acura sway from 1996 to 2004 and then kind of floated off into well-deserved oblivion.

The replacement, the 2005 RL, was, in the conservative world of Honda (Acura's corporate parent), pretty exciting. It had all-wheel-drive -- in Honda-speak, it's called Super Handling All Wheel Drive -- and it actually did make the car feel much more planted to the road. It didn't hurt that the design of the 2005 had a swooping front end, with a hood sharply diving down to the grille -- from behind the wheel, you can't even see the hood.
The 2007 RL has had only minor changes from its predecessors -- a base trim level has been introduced, one that has neither navigation nor the Adaptive Cruise Control (more on that later). But an Acura official said that a changed RL will be coming soon, a not very surprising development given Honda's habit of introducing either a partial change or a whole new generation every four years or so.
In theory, the new RL will be a bit more noticeable than this one. Of course, I happen to like stealth cars and this is a shining example of one. From the rear, from the side, from the front, there's nothing that stands out as a unique styling cue, even though the car as a whole seems well thought out. If anything, the car looks muscular, in the sense that it has that pronounced wedge shape that makes the rear of the car stand up a bit.
And it is muscular, up to a point. The only engine you can get in the RL is a 3.5-liter, 290-horsepower V6, mated to a five-speed automatic transmission. It's fine and it provides plenty of power for what it is. But the competition offers V8 motors that will blast this RL right into the weeds.

Inside, the RL has all the expected entertainment and climate control cosseting you would expect from a car like this -- Acura/Bose surround-sound, 10 speakers, DVD audio, heated seats, tilt-telescoping steering wheel, voice recognition (turn it off, please), navigation, rear view camera.
But the thing I liked the best -- and, yes, you can have versions of this on Mercedes-Benz and Lexus, among others -- is the Adaptive Cruise Control. Set the cruise control on, say, 70 mph. When you approach a car in your lane that is traveling slower, a radar device in the nose of the Acura detects the car or truck in front of you and automatically slows down the Acura to the speed of the car ahead.
Usually, it worked, at least when the car ahead was going along pretty fast, but just not as fast as I was. The Acura would detect the car in front and gradually put on the brakes. Where it didn't work was when it detected a slow-moving truck ahead in the same lane. At that point, the Acura decided to rush right up to the rear of the truck and then slam on the brakes at the last minute. Acura concedes, through a spokeswoman, that "the braking could be refined."

Our test model also had another safety option, dubbed "collision mitigation braking system," which works whether the cruise control is on or off. With CMBS, as Acura calls it, if the grille-mounted radar senses that you're moving too close and too quickly to the car ahead it applies a series of warnings, flashing the word BRAKE in the instrument panel and beeping at you. If things look even more precarious -- you haven't braked quickly enough -- the system beeps again, tightens the seat belt and takes over the braking itself.

The anomaly in this car, however, is the fact that it is sweeping the cellar in its own category of so-called "mid-premium" cars. A chart freely provided by Acura shows that by the end of October 2006, the BMW 5-series was the class leader, followed closely by Mercedes-Benz' E-series -- both lines offer bristling V8 engines. Lower on the chart are, in order, the Infiniti M35 and M45, Lexus GS300, Audi A6/S6 and, in last place, the Acura RL.
Some say it doesn't look like a $50,000 car, that it looks too much like a glorified Honda Accord. Maybe. But it does go a bit more impressively than an Accord.

2007 ACURA RL Type: Four-door sedan
Price as tested: $53,870
Base price: $45,780
Power train: 3.5-liter, V6 290-horsepower engine; five-speed automatic transmission
Curb weight: 4,076 pounds
Seating capacity: Five
Mileage: 18 mpg city; 26 highway
Fuel tank capacity: 19.4 gallons
Dimensions: Length, 193.6 inches; width, 72.7 inches; height, 57.1 inches; wheelbase, 110.2 inches
Warranty: bumper to bumper, four years, 50,000 miles; power train, six years, 70,000 miles
Source: Acura Division, American Honda Motor Co. (www.acura.com); U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (www.fueleconomy.gov)



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[shawnhu]

"The Legend lasted up through the 2004 model year, ..."

The Legend's last year was 1995 if I'm not mistaken.