The Finalists - 2009 Acura TSX - 2009 Motor Trend Car of the Year

2009 Acura TSX

What They Did Right: Rarely do five seats find themselves in such a sharp-edged handler as this. Acura has resisted the natural choice of a V-6 here, and what with volatile gas prices, they could be right.

Room For Improvement: Meager rear legroom (and footroom beneath the front seat), low-end torque, controversial grill.

Remember the old advertising shill, "It's longer, lower, and wider"? Well, in the case of the new Acura TSX, make that longer and a whopping three inches wider. Based upon the redesigned European-spec Honda Accord, the TSX has gained loads of interior elbow room, somehow lost a cubic foot of trunk space, gained 160 pounds in weight, and has improved its already modest rear legroom by-drumroll-0.1 inch. What's up with this? As with many things European, we're not entirely sure.

We're equally puzzled by Acura's finger-threatening "power plenum" grille. Okay, it delivers to the brand a distinctive face, but we're not convinced Veg-O-Matic dicer is the way to go here. Yes, TSX, we have a few issues with you. But fire its sweet 2.4-liter four (up eight pound-feet of torque but down four horses-drat-another qualm!), notch the super-slick six-speed shifter into first (the alternative is a new paddle-shift five-speed automatic), and Acura's entry model can melt reservations faster than an 18-year-old on a Tijuana weekend. The car is a smile-maker: "One of my big surprises," says one driver. Another notes, "Very nice on the winding track, extremely neutral, easy to drift it even with its stability control switched on." The TSX's steering effort seems a tad light, and on uphill ascents, you need to keep the revs howling to maintain the excitement level. But this is an unusually sensitive driver, a credible poor man's BMW 3 Series (or maybe 1 Series).

Under more leisurely circumstances, the TSX offers a taut but acceptable ride, but even its taut-ride moments reveal a deliciously rigid chassis. It's unexpectedly quiet, too (given its sport-minded mission), a noticeable advance in hushing tire noise and aerodynamics compared with Honda's and Acura's recent fare. Another improvement is the dash's calmer, less button-festooned center stack. "It's a lot cleaner to use than the U.S. Accord's," opines a judge.

The TSX is a car that challenges you with questions. "Acura has done a fine job of making a car that most others would build as a V-6," a driver writes. Compliment or criticism? Either way, the very existence of so many questions has been enough to keep the golden calipers out of reach.
- Kim Reynolds