RL artfully balances power, grace
The word “balance” has always seemed to sum up Honda’s car-building philosophy.
Its cars are never the fastest, flashiest or most expensive, but they a) always work and b) work as an integrated whole.
With rare exceptions, excessive horsepower doesn’t overwhelm a platform; brakes aren’t light years ahead of the steering; and styling doesn’t create expectations the mechanicals can’t satisfy.
With Hondas, what you see is what you get.
For much of the past week, I’ve been driving the 2005 RL sedan from Acura (Acura is Honda’s premium division), and have come away with this conclusion: In the case of Acura’s new flagship, harmony is a better world than balance.
Nothing feels forced; everything feels right.
A flagship needn’t be the most exotic or most powerful pup in the litter (in Acura’s case, that would be the NSX sports car), but it must fully embody the company’s DNA.
For the past few years, even Acura has had difficulty defining its DNA. But in the past year or two, a clearer vision has emerged — and the RL expresses it perfectly.
It’s comfortable, quietly handsome and enormously capable. It drives and feels of a piece. It has been criticized for not having a V-8, but doesn’t need one. It offers only an automatic transmission but one that makes shifts so quickly only a handful of drivers could better it with a stick.
The seats, controls, pedals, steering wheel – all are ideally positioned and proportioned. Yes, the interface that controls the electronic wizardry is complex, but follows a logic missing in competing systems.
Like other members of the Acura family, the RL has two, overlapping personalities.
Around town or on the freeway it makes zero demands of the driver and is willing to melt into the background on an eventless commute. Turn it loose on a winding country road, though, or cross the state on a snowy freeway and it grows into something more.
On the track, the RL becomes a splendid sport-sedan; in bad weather, all-wheel-drive turns it into a sure-footed all-weather cruiser.
It’s just the tip of the technological iceberg, but the new all-wheel-drive system has grabbed the headlines, so let’s start there.
For starters, the RL is available only in an AWD version.
All-wheel-drive is a wonderful solution to all-weather traction woes but in hard, fast corners it acts like front-wheel-drive. The front end pushes through the corner, scrubbing off speed as it goes, in a condition known as understeer.
Honda’s Super Handling All-Wheel-Drive (SH-AWD) system (some drivers will remember it from Preludes past) counters oversteer by causing the outside rear wheel to rotate at a faster speed. This causes a yaw effect that forces the car to rotate around an axis instead of plowing ahead helplessly.
The result: faster cornering and more control.
Moreover, Acura has tuned its traction and stability control systems to stay out of the way until they’re really needed. That’s a benefit only to drivers who take their cars to track day, but my guess is more will, now that the RL has become so capable.
Other technological advances are equally impressive but with different ends in mind.
If the cabin seems eerily quiet — and it does — thanks are due to an electronic noise cancellation system that works so well it’s almost spooky.
And because no one wants an endlessly silent cabin, Acura ported over the surround-sound audio system from the TL. It plays DVD-A and MP3 formats with a fidelity that rivals excellent home audio.
The navigation system continues to be the industry’s best, with a voice-command functionality that actually works. A new nav-system module monitors traffic conditions in real-time in the country’s 20 largest markets and provides the driver with information about potential slowdowns and alternate routes.
Acura’s digital interface is cleaner than most, but still requires the driver to negotiate through a series of screens to accomplish such pedestrian tasks as changing ventilation system airflow.
Of course, all the technology in the world doesn’t have much value if it’s not wrapped in a pleasing package and the RL succeeds here better than any Acura in memory.
The silhouette is clean and coupe-like. The paint sparkles with metal-flake. The halogen headlights are set, jewel-like, into trim, slippery fenders.
The two outer beams swivel left or right to follow the contours of the road, the latest up-level trend.
Past Acura cabins have suffered from what might be called under-enthusiastic design strategies. But the RL cabin is warm, inviting and ideally proportioned. Polished maple trim gleams and perforated leather seats coddle.
The RL is a midsize car and offers only slightly more interior space than an Accord, but by Acura’s lights that’s big enough. Four will be comfortable, five will be out of the question.
Acura also reckons the 3.5-liter V-6 is powerful enough — and it does pull down sub-7-second times in the 0-60 dash. Displacement junkies will bemoan the lack of low-end torque, though; the torque peak doesn’t occur until the engine hits 5,000 rpm, so forget squirting into that open lane next to you at city speeds.
For those willing to row their own, the five-speed automatic compensates nicely. It makes shifts that are not just smooth, but rapid, too.
The RL comes fully equipped and in one trim level only, at $49,470. Loaded means all the expected luxuries, up to and including retractable sunshades for all rear windows, a full complement of airbags, navigation and XM Satellite radio with one year’s free subscription.
If you’re a go-fast type, the dealership will happily sell you a set of 18-inch wheels with summer times.
Offhand, I’m not sure I can think of a car that feels as organically conceived and executed as the RL. Certainly, some cars do some things better, but none I can think of does them more effortlessly.