Overview & Reviews

Acura is an upscale automaker known for offering cars with impressive levels of luxury, features and performance. It's come a long way in a short time, however, as the history of Acura is relatively brief. Parent company Honda introduced the Acura brand to the U.S. market in 1986 in an effort to create a separate luxury division for its products. At first, it was just a two-car show: the Legend sedan, which was the first true Japanese luxury car sold in America, and the Integra sport coupe and sedan.

Though essentially a marketing creation for the North American market, the Acura brand was immediately successful. Consumers liked the features, performance and upscale image of Acura cars, along with the fact that Acuras were backed by Honda's reputation for reliability and low ownership costs. In 1991, Acura introduced its crown jewel: the all-aluminum NSX sports car, which offered performance close to that of other exotic cars while undercutting them in price.

As Acura's product line grew in the 1990s, however, the company struggled a bit. Some of its products were duds, and it risked alienating loyal customers when it replaced the Legend and Integra names with alphanumeric designations. The company jumped on the hot luxury SUV bandwagon in the mid-'90s with the SLX. Unfortunately, the SLX was just a rebadged version of an Isuzu SUV, and its quality did not match customers' expectations.

For the new millennium, Acura revamped its product range. An all-new SUV called the MDX debuted, sporting numerous family-friendly features, including a third-row seat. The Integra was replaced with the RSX sport coupe, and an all-new entry-level sport sedan called the TSX was introduced after that. A complete redesign of its most popular model, the midsize TL sedan, followed, as did a redesign of its flagship RL luxury sedan.

By mid-decade the NSX was gone, but Acura filled out its model lineup with the street-performance-oriented RDX compact crossover, the TSX wagon and the ZDX, a fastback-styled crossover that placed unique styling over practicality. Today Acura is still trying to find its ideal niche but there's no denying the quality of Acura's vehicles, nor their appealing mix of performance, technology and value.

User Reviews:

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  mdx is the best suv on the planet!!!11 - 2003 Acura MDX
  By mdxlover - January 6 - 10:00 am

  this is the best allround suv ever produced, it has refinement, comfort, luxury, power, a great sound system, four wheel drive system, and is great in almost every category imaginable.

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  Acura MDX Performance Review - 2003 Acura MDX
  By StarItalian - January 6 - 10:00 am

  With the exception of the low gas mileage (14.6 mpg), I have only favorable comments about this vehicle.

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  great suv - 2003 Acura MDX
  By michele malik - January 6 - 10:00 am

  the acura mdx is a very good car. it has only been with me for about two months, but i am very pleased with this vehicle. it is a great buy for suv lovers.

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  Best in show! - 2005 Acura TL
  By nclaw - January 5 - 11:26 pm

  fantastic car! I like it more today than the day that I bought it.

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  GREAT CAR!!!!! - 1999 Acura CL
  By XCLUSIVE - January 5 - 2:00 am

  This car is great and fun to drive.

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  RSX Rocks - 2002 Acura RSX
  By BriRSX - January 4 - 10:53 pm

  Great car cant say more about it

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  93 NSX review - 1993 Acura NSX
  By Dale Peterson - January 4 - 2:00 am

  Bought vehicle used with 112000 miles on it. Car was like new in every respect. Everything works perfectly. Driving is really fun and comfortable.This car gets lots of attention. Corvettes are too common.As a bonus it is very reliable and gets good gas milage. Dale

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  Great Value - 1992 Acura Integra
  By Armitage - January 3 - 2:00 am

  I did a lot of research trying to find a fun, reliable car for under $5,000. I was able to find it in my Integra. I bought the GS model which has all the power accessories but does not have the vtec engine. The 1.8 liter engine in it though, has plenty of zip and has been really reliable. There are plenty of after market components you can buy to make it faster or look better and its really not that much differenet than a Honda Civic if you do your own auto repair. I found this car to be a much better value of comparable models like the Nissan 240 or Toyota Celica.

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  type r rules - 2000 Acura Integra
  By costas - January 2 - 2:00 am

  this vehicle is a race car straight out of the box. you need to do absoulotely nothing to it. no other veh on the road can offer you this type of formula 1 technolgy for the price. if you cant afford a nsx this is definitely the next best thing. the more i drive it the better it gets.

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  2nd time arount - 2006 Acura TL
  By bill - January 1 - 2:13 pm

  This is teh second TL that I have had and I love teh new voice activated nav and sound system. Combine this with Blue tooth technologoy you can leave your hands on the wheel the whole time you drive. Excellent performance for a 3.2 L, good exhausts sound and the Michelin tires are better than the Bridgestone. I would buy this car again especially if they could squeeze in a V8