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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  Fun Car - 2000 Acura Integra
  By talkative - April 15 - 2:00 am

  A great fun car. After three years, I still like the peppy response and solid control. I often take this for granted (and realize what it offers when I have to drive a rental/friends car). Totally reliable, this is the car Id want to be driving on a lonely dark road.

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  Wow! - 1998 Acura SLX
  By HardDriver - April 14 - 2:00 am

  I have owned my 1998 SLX for six years now. All I have ever done is put oil and gas in it -- nothing has ever broken, squeaked, or given any trouble. It is great and I highly recommend it to anyone.

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  91 Acura Interga - 1991 Acura Integra
  By Luis F.Panchana - April 14 - 2:00 am

  This Car is fun to drive. Small but sporty. Easy to park and quick on the streets.

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  1992 Pristine NSX - 1992 Acura NSX
  By JohnS710 - April 14 - 2:00 am

  This car is as perfect a sports car get. Handling is superior to all other sports cars in the 30-60k range. Only downfall is the small trunk space

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  Get it if you can! - 1991 Acura NSX
  By NSXer4Life - April 14 - 2:00 am

  Best, fun, exotic, low maintenance vehicle Ive ever driven. Some people complain about the $2,000 to replace the clutch (thats if you do it at an Acura dealership), but if you own a used Ferrari, that $2,000 wont even get you 2 oil changes every 1,500 miles.

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  The ultimate driving machine - 2003 Acura RSX
  By Seanpen - April 13 - 2:00 am

  This care is just great. Its unmatched

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  My TL - 2004 Acura TL
  By sbell - April 12 - 9:03 pm

  This is a great car! Its fast and sporty, but it still allows me to be mom. It comes fully loaded and handles like a dream. Tons of trunk space and a fun car to drive. I would buy this car again and highly recommend it. We shopped it against other cars with the same options; it was thousands more.

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  Overall Satisfied - 2005 Acura TL
  By Acuraman - April 12 - 5:26 am

  This car has it all for the price. It was nice to see that Consumer Reports has this car TOP PICK two years in a row. Navigation easy and reliable compaired to other automakers.

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  this car rocks - 1995 Acura Integra
  By badastronuat - April 12 - 2:00 am

  its like vahwwaaah VahwwAAAAAH with a cold air intake and gets 30 miles per gallon. its almost ten years old and far from dying. one of the best cars to buy used.

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  Transmission horror - 2002 Acura TL
  By dgytoronto - April 12 - 2:00 am

  First day off the lot and it was back in the shop. Got a new transmission and a computer. Just got the car back last week with another new tranny @ 40000 km. The new one is also giving sloppy gear changes and will shift unusually on hills. I wonder how long this will last for? Dealer was mediocre - missed the problem on several visits. They said that they get kept in the dark about the problem transmissions by Honda. I dont think that they can build them to handle the big horses this car can put out.