October 11^th, 2004

RL Too Real, Romantic, or just Really Innovative?

Behind the Strategy of Acura's first serious Flagship in a decade

We remain astounded that Acura’s press release material insists on comparing the new, 2005 RL to the forgettable and long aged old one. '05 RL is a far better car, but the improvements are decidedly under the skin...

... looking at the new RL, we admit to being a little, well... underwhelmed. The conservative appearance is to have been expected, Honda having rarely led style as well as it has technology, but why must it draw from rather humble origins? Some might admire Acura for sticking to its guns, stylistically. We see a pleasing shape with inoffensive form, simple surfacing, and conservative detailing...

... and an interpretation of the Bangle-esque bustle-back, recalled by the ’02 7 series from Rolls-Royces of the very distant past. It seems odd that a design element that has been so criticized would be so widely emulated, but Lexus and Mercedes-Benz (the latter no doubt claiming Maybach influence) look set to do the same

Three cubic feet more passenger volume in here, despite the car being shorter in wheelbase and overall length. Instruments glow with varying candescence on start-up and, as with the TL, the dashboard visually recalls a high-end hi-fi

Acura makes much of its Telematics Server, a reference point which can send advisory messages to the car and schedule maintenance, operated via Bluetooth-enabled communication thro-ugh the driver’s cell-phone. Yet Acura is adamant that the technology will not hamper driver enjoyment, perhaps a shot across the bow toward BMW's much-maligned iDrive systems

Acura would just as soon forget its outgoing flagship.

A flagship model is generally an indication of what the brand could offer you, given more of your money. Theoretically, the flagship should promise more of that brand’s values in return for more of your money.

Acura’s outgoing RL, launched in 1996, was more of a self-imposed limit, an indication that the brand’s ceiling was $40k. It never provided more than a cursory few units, and never added to its category.

Honda is by and large a sub-$30k brand. Acura has not proven its ability to get much beyond $40k effectively.

That situation could not continue. RL was emphatically not more Honda. The RL never had VTEC, Honda’s most enduring contribution to contemporary automotive technology. It had a mere 4-speed automatic transmission. It was class-leading in nothing – not style, not handling, and – curiously – not ride, either.

So, in 1996, Honda was thus stuck with importing a luxury car at a time of high yen (creating pricing problems often referred to as The Lexus Effect - see article: 'Lexus - In the Lap of Latent Luxury'), and offering buyers – curiously, considering the company’s penchant for parts-sharing – less of the traditional Honda virtue for more money!

How did it happen? Simple - there was not the suspension travel in that car to work with, thus accounting for that rare combination of poor ride and poor handling.

To understand how that combination came to be, one must go back to the days of the Honda-Rover tie-up. In the early '80s, the two companies complemented each other well. Rover badly needed midsize cars, and Honda's Accord gave them a solid platform. Meanwhile, Honda wanted Rover's expertise in building bigger vehicles.

The original Acura Legend was a joint venture that also resulted in a few Rover 800s making their way Stateside as (somewhat more poorly-built) Sterling 825s and 827s. To earn their keep, Rover had demonstrated a certain flair for suspension and chassis design, dating back to the 3500/ SD1 - a vehicle with superb handling, if a jittery ride. It appears that Honda was impressed enough to let Rover begin planning the car that would become the Legend.

During Legend's development, Rover quarreled with Honda over the design of the front suspension. Rover wanted struts; Honda wanted its traditional double-wishbone.

Honda won, but the decision would plague it all the way through the current RL. Keith Adam's excellent Unofficial Austin-Rover Web Resource describes the problem:

"Because of Honda’s insistence that the car would have a low scuttle which led to a low bonnet line, traditional McPherson struts would not fit, so a complex and expensive double wishbone arrangement was settled on, but in true Honda tradition, there was only a limited amount of wheel travel available.

"Because of this, as far as Austin Rover were concerned, ride quality was compromised from the beginning and as a result, this aspect of the car was at variance to how it might have been, had the British designed it."

- The Unofficial Austin-Rover Web Resource

Was the Legend competitive, back in 1986? Certainly! The ride/ handling compromise was tilted toward the latter, and it did a great job of showing-up the boats of the time.

The ride/ handling compromise had moved on by the time the RL came out in 1996, however, and Honda simply did not move with it. They capitulated on the ride, having taken criticism from the press on both the second-generation Legend and the midsize Acura Vigor that their dynamics were too heavily weighted toward handling.

One might have expected the company to redesign the chassis for a better compromise. Unfortunately, Honda's traditional evolution - kaizen - involves some level of derivation. Consider that:

• the 1994 Accord shared 50% of its components with the previous model, introduced in 1990.
   

• The 1998 Accord shared 50% of its components, again, with the 1994 model.

(Making and Selling Cars: Innovation and Change in the U.S. Automotive Industry,
James M. Rubenstein, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001)

That commonality is a key piece of lean production along with, of course, Honda’s impressive manufacturing and vertical integration improvements.

With the '96-'04 RL, we got a car that was set up to handle well, but softened and loaded (to the tune of almost 4,000 lbs.) to the point where it no longer did. Worse yet, there was not the suspension travel to offer the intended ride quality!

As a result, sales of Acura's most recent flagship have paled in comparison to that of the Legend, which soared to 70,770 at its peak in 1988. In 2000, Acura sold just 14,827 RLs.

The original Legend – the first of the two Legend generations, and the car which had decidedly the most impact on the market - was not, relatively, as expensive as the ’96-’04 RL. A more focused - and more Honda-esque - car, the Legend offered more for less money. It did well.

RL proposed less for more. It has done poorly. Perhaps if ever there was a case of needing to rename a car, this is it. Its brand recognition is so miniscule in the context of its peers that perhaps they should have named the '05 model, Legend.

A higher MSRP should mean more profitability, both in terms of the actual flagship itself, and the halo effect which it casts on the rest of the range. Yet, not surprisingly, the pert, wieldy little '03 TSX and the pleasantly quick (if dynamically flawed - see article: '2004 Acura TL Espouses More of the Same Under its New Lines') '04 TL have both run circles around the former RL flagship, preferring to disassociate themselves from its staid looks and image.

Your 264 Acura dealers will be relieved that the higher profit margins of a competitive, higher-priced car may soon be theirs. Finally, it is time to move on.

Is it? We remain astounded that Acura’s press release material insists on comparing the new, 2005 RL to the old, citing 33% increased horsepower, 12% increased torque, and improved "comfort, quietness, and ride quality," among several attempts to benchmark the former car. All are true – but most late '90s competitors could claim much of the same over the 2004 RL.

'05 RL is a far better car, but the improvements are decidedly under the skin. Looking at this new car, we admit to being a little, well... underwhelmed. The conservative appearance is to have been expected, Honda rarely having led style as well as it has technology, but why must it draw from rather humble origins?

Some might admire Acura for sticking to its guns, stylistically. We see a pleasing shape with inoffensive form, simple surfacing, and conservative detailing -

- and it is this latter point which most confuses us. The forgettable Acura grille has done nothing for the previous RL, and is hardly a recognized styling aspect in remotely the same way as, say, BMW's kidney grille. Why not pull away from it? It breaks-up the smooth lines of the car, for no other reason but to say, me too. If aerodynamics is as important to the company as is claimed, this aerodynamically inefficient gap should have been closed, and made part of the sales pitch!

We are reminded of Lexus, who were once on track to do exactly that (as radical concepts of the original LS400 confirm). When Lexus debuted the LS400 in 1989, they retained a love for aerodynamics all the way up until the front end, where a big grille was stuck on. Why? Mercedes had one. Lexus needed that credibility, as Lexus researchers Brian Long, Jonathan Mahler, and most recently Chester Dawson have all recounted (see article: 'Lexus: In the Lap of Latent Luxury?')

Lexus compromised their ethics (much to the dismay of Chief Engineer Ichiro Suzuki, something of a genius, but that's another story). Infiniti, with the Q45, did not - but admittedly met with comparatively zero success (albeit that there were other reasons for this, including incredibly poor marketing).

The past notwithstanding, times have changed; all three Japanese luxury divisions now have a brand image, and Acura's image is negative solely in the $50k+ market.

A more holistic approach to the RL, and one which deviated from the outgoing car, might have addressed this weakness better. The TSX and TL, being part of a bottom-up strategy, have sold even with a negative 'halo' vehicle above them.

Why offer a car that is inherently different underneath (as we shall see), yet so familiar above that no one might bother to look? Being different should have been part of the overall strategy.

They call it a "taut, athletic body design with European influence." 2.6 inches taller, an inch wider, and three inches shorter than the old car, it does look taut – helped by a wedge-like front end. It is not hard to spot the European influence, either – an interpretation of the Bangle-esque bustle-back, recalled by the ’02 BMW 7 series from Rolls-Royces of the very distant past. It seems odd that a design element that has been so criticized would be so widely emulated, but Lexus looks set to do the same – and, indeed, we’re somewhat chuffed in having predicted it.

The 7 series was launched in late-2001, with pictures circulating around the web months before that. Honda's Product Development Process (i.e: the 5 stages from Concept Generation through Pilot Testing) took 48 months in 1990 (Making and Selling Cars: Innovation and Change in the U.S. Automotive Industry, James M. Rubenstein, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001). In a decade, that product development process has dropped, we are sure, to within 40 months. Simple math will indicate that the 7 series, and certainly the Z9 Concept (which predated the 7er by more than two years), was within the reach of the '05 RL's Concept Generation stage.

We have been calling on manufacturers to focus on aerodynamics again, and Acura appears to have done that, to some extent. Side glass is flush, windshield wipers are protected by a cowl, the mirrors have been designed with a nod to drag, and the underbody is peppered with covers and strakes to reduce air turbulence and pressure, and keep the vehicle on the ground. They claim a 0.29 coefficient of drag – again, where’s the C_dA? Multiply the C_d by the frontal area, give us the drag force acting on the car, and gain an intelligent advantage over the competition.

If the motive here is an intelligent entry, then let us see that aspect fully emphasized.

How did they make it shorter, and yet gain three cubic feet of passenger volume? Aside from the advances of modern packaging, a four-inch shorter wheelbase, and a slightly more compact engine, that new engine has also been mounted transversely, as opposed to longitudinally. That makes the engine compartment more compact.

Despite the fact that the outgoing RL was front-wheel-drive, its 3.5-liter V6 was indeed mounted in the traditional rear-wheel-drive orientation. Though a little odd, it was not the first time this was done.

Renault has long favored longitudinally mounted, front-wheel-drive layouts, largely because they believed:

• that the weight distribution of such a layout was more favorable,
   

• and that NVH was improved (in early Renault 4-cylinder cases, vibrations were front-to-back, as opposed to side-to-side).

For an example of the advantages, look no further than Chrysler's '90s belief in Renault's '80s engineering. When Chrysler purchased AMC in 1987, the now-legendary former Renault F1 engineer François Castaing was directed by Bob Lutz to oversee the development of the LH-sedans (Concorde/ Intrepid/ Vision). Castaing insisted on retaining the longitudinal layout of the Renault-engined Eagle Premier, a remarkably agile car for its size, weight, and front-drive layout.

We hardly buy Acura’s claim, therefore, that the longitudinal-to-transverse change "allows the RL to be packaged more tightly for better handling agility, without sacrificing interior comfort." Was Chrysler not able to pioneer Cab Forward perfectly well with a longitudinal layout?

A far better explanation is that the new 60-degree engine is related to that in the transverse-engined Acura MDX SUV, albeit that few internal parts - according to Acura - are shared. More to the point, the RL’s transmission is "mechanically related to the extremely compact transmission that made its debut in the 2003 MDX."

Presto - we have our answer. Shades of the old RL's expediency, perhaps? We will return to weight distribution - which retaining the longitudinal layout might have improved - later.

Layout aside, the new engine and transmission are a welcome improvement.

We get a new aluminum 3.5-liter SOHC VTEC V-6 with 300hp @ 6,200rpm and 260 lb-ft @ a high-ish (on average, 1,500 higher than the 6-cylinder Audi, BMW, and Lexus competition) 5,000rpm, mated to a variant of the MDX's 5-speed automatic transmission. The 6,800 rpm limit on the 6-cylinder seems uncharacteristically low for a Honda automobile that has purportedly changed much of the MDX engine's internals, and one wonders whether perhaps an extra gear might have been an idea, but early figures suggest that the RL has done its math. The old RL was rated at 18 mpg city/ 24 hwy by the EPA. The new one, preliminary figures suggest, will match the city performance, but up highway performance by 2mpg.

Between the ’04 A6’s 3.0-liter V6, the ’04 530i’s 3.0-liter inline-6, and the GS300’s 3.0-liter inline-6, only the BMW matches Acura’s compliance with CARB’s LEV2-ULEV standard. Only the BMW – equipped with a 6-speed manual - beats its fuel economy: 20mpg city/ 30mpg hwy.

Unlike BMW, and unlike any of its competition for that matter, Honda continues to resolutely resist the temptation to produce a roadgoing V8. The press release justifies the choice by suggesting that V8-engined competitors "count for only 15% of the vehicles sold in this market segment." Additionally, Honda suggests that, without a V8, the RL is "light and more nimble, but also powerful and balanced." It backs this up by noting that the 530i, A6, GS300, and E320 do not offer all-wheel-drive at the RL’s price level.

The new powertrain is couched in a steel/ aluminum body structure which Acura dubs Advanced Compatibility Engineering (ACE). The idea is to better protect you, should you incur an accident with an SUV with high frame rails. Time after time, we have been shown that such frame rails push SUVs to ride right over the cars they encounter. Acura reports that ACE’s lower member helps prevent vertical and lateral misalignment of the frames of the vehicles involved. Moreover, an upper frame (bulkhead) provides a polygonal aspect to the main frame, offering more pathways for the distribution of the crash force.

Like BMW, Acura has used aluminum in the front and rear subframes, hood, fenders, and suspension. It goes further in offering an aluminum trunk lid, and claims to have saved more than 80 lbs. (40 in the subframes, 40 in the panels) over using high tension steel. The rear aluminum subframe befits a flagship, bettering the TL’s steel variant. Expect torsional rigidity to be light years over the previous model's.

Despite the weight gain, the new RL is 91 lbs. heavier than its predecessor – albeit that much of this can be put down to the all-wheel-drive system. All-wheel-drive competitors cannot beat the RL’s weight: 3,984 lbs.

The problem is, weight distribution has been barely improved! '05 RL tips-in at 58/42, front-biased, versus 59/41 in the old car. Despite the all-wheel-drive system’s potential for transferring dynamic weight around, this is regardless a worrying statistic for a 4,000 lb. car. Compare with 50/50 for the 5 series; 53/47 for the outgoing GS, and 51/49 with the E320. Only the all-wheel-drive Audi A6 is worse than the RL, at 61/39, and that car’s dynamic performance shows it.

This seems to justify Chrysler's faith in the longitudinal engine layout. More is the pity that expediency has quashed one of the only remarkable features of the outgoing RL.

The old RL cost $45,600. The new one? $48,900 - a commendable, incremental increase considering the extensive changes that have been wrought.

That tells only part of the story, though. If there has been one thing to continuously and universally commend Acura on, it is its aversion to option packages. Standard equipment is a "basic Acura tenet," according to the company. Although high-performance tires, navigation systems, and DVD entertainment systems are on their line-up’s options list, that’s about it. Base price is virtually fully-loaded (RSX apart, which is low enough on the line to offer leather as an option).

"In the case of the (2005) RL, everything is standard," the company boasts. Indeed, equipment is a key story of the ’05 RL. Instruments glow with varying candescence on start-up and, as with the TL, the dashboard visually recalls a high-end hi-fi. The driver interface with the vehicle is peppered with technology, including drive-by-wire and the Tucker concept/ Citroën production headlamp-swiveling system that everyone seems to have rediscovered.

Yet Acura is adamant that the technology will not hamper driver enjoyment, perhaps a shot across the bow toward BMW's much-maligned iDrive systems.

In twenty U.S. metro areas (likely to be expanded with future software upgrades), the RL converts traffic report data to visual representations on the screen. It is clever, and a relatively simple software interpretation of existing data – why has no one else thought of this?

Onstar is offered, too, the result of Honda’s agreement to supply GM’s Red Line Saturns with VTEC engines.

Acura makes much of its Telematics Server, a reference point which can send advisory messages to the car and schedule maintenance, operated via Bluetooth-enabled communication through the driver’s cell-phone.

While Acura’s 260 Watt, 10-speaker BOSE DVD-Audio system (the only one available in the industry until Cadillac’s STS) lacks the 15 speakers of the STS, it too has been involved early on in the car’s product development process. Much of the industry has gradually realized that vertical integration and overlap of the five major product development stages improves the quality, manufacturability, and profitability of the vehicle. The results reportedly achieved by both systems is a clear testament to the benefits of considering every aspect of a car from the very beginning.

Both systems benefit from careful, mutual understanding between cabin and audio designers and, indeed, between the audio and the NVH (noise, vibration, and harshness) people.  Acura has taken the latter point a step further, with Active Noise Cancellation to neutralize low-frequency NVH in the interior. Two front and rear microphones in the headliner capture these frequencies, and the door speakers and subwoofer send out a reverse phase audio signal.

Designing a car stereo is a unique opportunity to design a system that perfectly considers the sole environment in which it will be used, and we are thrilled that it is becoming such a mutual, inherent process.

Separate from the included traction control is Acura’s latest all-wheel-drive system. It’s the most innovative aspect of the new RL, and we commend Acura for taking its VTM-4 system (as featured on the MDX) a step further.

Rather charmingly named Super Handling All-Wheel-Drive, or SH-AWD, the new system purports to carry out the driver’s instructions – determined by the steering angle, vehicle speed, and g-force, among other aspects – more accurately than do the opposition. Based on the driver’s initial input, and the condition of the road, SH-AWD works out what the front-to-rear and (at the rear tires) left-to-right torque distribution should be.

The parameters allow 70% of the torque in the former direction (when cornering), and all of that 70% in the latter. It is then up to the rear differential to manipulate the torque on, and individually across, the rear wheels. Within the differential are multi-plate clutches, the first to be controlled by electromagnets (more precise, says Acura).

In neutral cornering, the speed of the outside rear wheel is greater than the average of both front wheels. All-wheel-drive makes this more difficult – but Acura has found a way around the problem, apportioning more power to the outside wheel when understeer is detected.  The inward yaw moment counters the vehicle’s tendency to leave the road.

Should the driver decelerate or (heaven forbid!) brake, mid-corner, potentially inducing oversteer as weight transfer is shifted to the front, the inside wheel is accelerated. This creates an outward yaw movement, keeping the vehicle from spinning-out.

How does it work in a straight line? In regular driving, up to 70% of the torque resides on the front wheels, 30% on the rear. When the driver steps on the gas, the split moves to 60/40.

Acura claims "incredibly neutral steering," and we certainly look forward to a more vigorous appetite for corners from both the flagship, and from the TL as the technology trickles-down (as it should!)

Honda finds itself in something of an enigma here.

Traditional Honda strategy is based on incremental improvement. Incremental improvement does not work when the car upon which the improvement was made is such an also-ran.

We are, thus, gratified that the Acura flagship package has been renovated.

Cynics will suggest that the incremental improvement strategy bodes well for profitability, and there are certainly examples of this in the '05 RL (as noted), but Honda has clearly found with the outgoing RL that this type of profitability in a flagship model is short-lived.

With the 2005 RL, what looks in styling and cylinder count to be incremental improvement hides an all-new chassis and all-wheel-drive system.

Honda’s PR and marketing efforts desperately need to get away from the also-ran ’04 RL. The press release insists on statements such as citing a 75hp gain over the outgoing RL (15 hp from the "high inertia intake manifold;" 40hp from "internal engine efficiencies," including a better compression ratio, and 20hp from the "variable flow-rate exhaust system.")

Even the ’95 Legend, which most remember with fondness, would be a better comparison - and one with higher horsepower (not that we are suggesting it!)

It is hard to imagine a luxury car that straddles categories in the way that the RL does.  Rover’s 75 is a British near-luxury vehicle that also plays in the mainstreamer class; in the U.S. market, Chrysler’s 300/ 300C follow a similar strategy.

Yet near-luxury and luxury, with an engine option more (peripherally, at least) closely allied to past near-luxury strategy? We know of none.

Moreover, the sooner Acura marketing realizes the difficulty of escaping the former flagship's poor market and dynamic performance, the better. The 2005 RL will be succeeding a vehicle that has never remotely caught fire in the market. The current RL has never been competitive, not in 1996 and not in 2004. '05 RL thus has an uphill task, for it replaces a peripheral player that has not etched its name into the minds of buyers.

We admire Honda for adhering to its principles in the face of competition that has regularly defeated its $50k luxury efforts. Yet competition is strong, and the luxury market is less swayed by equipment than by the mainstreamer market.

The burden of proof is on Acura, not on Mercedes-Benz and BMW buyers. At $50k, Acura has a brand to build. BMW has a brand to protect. Paddle-shifters are nice, but they’re not the 545i’s SMG.

Lexus has a brand to reinvent. They need that '06 GS double-quick. There is no point measuring the new RL against the outgoing GS - one would think a new car should compare with the best of what's new. Besides, in the recent history of this class, only the E39 BMW 5 series went out still quantifiably topping its class in the important, premium areas.

Being just as good for less money does not even the odds in this class. Better is the key word. Before the ’05 RL arrived to market, the luxury segment has been heavily tipped toward its competitors. Simply put, there is not only no history in this segment, but negative history.

Acura might note Lexus’ efforts. Lexus started out with a car that was quantifiably better: the original LS. Later vehicles, such as the ES250, ES300, and even the GS, were nowhere nearly as innovative - and the brand now sells more trucks (thus catering to decidedly less discerning buyers) than cars.

Speaking of the competition, we find it odd that Acura has seen it fit to exclude Cadillac’s STS from comparison in its press releases. It might do well not only to admit that car as a competitor, but also to trace the strategy that has brought it to market. About forty years ago, GM had the ability to dictate the market. It has since been through varying degrees of self-examination, before finally fielding some superb Cadillacs after a substantial mea culpa PR effort two years ago.

Times have changed, and yet (from preliminary print ads) Acura appears to have reverted to a marketing strategy in a circa-1986 vacuum, when it launched the Legend. Although there is more of a vacuum in the luxury class than among mainstreamers, it has yet to include Acura. The company can least afford to underestimate the competition (no more than Mercedes-Benz could, back in the ‘90s, afford the belief that Lexus would never succeed).

A 2004 BMW 530i with automatic transmission rings the scales in at 3,483 lbs, a full 501 lbs. less than the RL. That’s significant.

It also has a longer wheelbase to match the RL’s wide rear track. Having driven the 5 series, and noting - in particular - the RL's adverse weight distribution, we suspect the 5er will remain the handling champion of the class.

That said, there is an opening for the security of SH-AWD, which appears to be a foolproof system for drivers who regularly brake mid-corner, or enter corners at rates of speed they are not prepared to handle. Acura's marketing people need to get truly creative with this.

We hope they have a better strategy than simply throwing the kitchen sink at it and selling it on value. What works for the Accord, or even the TL (to a lesser degree) will be a hard-sell at $50k. Acura and Infiniti currently make up the least-established competitors in the $50k class. That is unfortunate but, in the context of the outgoing flagship, it was deserved.

On a leasing agreement, things get even worse for Acura - the resale value of the RL hardly compares with a $50k E-Class', and thus the average leasing agreement is more favorable.

As it is, the RL seems different, rather than conclusively better. We await a drive to confirm or disprove this, but Acura needs to pull the stops out on its advertising, and creatively emphasize the SH-AWD system.

It is singularly the most unique and innovative aspect of this vehicle, and provides a more convincing argument than simply value in a category where image is an important quality.

Image trades on differentiation, and Acura may have – finally – found a differentiator in an era where others have it beat on style, ever more closely matched on quality, and carrying badges that entice people to pick the car first, then equip it.

There are many fans of Honda’s continuous improvement – kaizen – strategy. We love it in the TSX, which is set to double Acura’s annual sales estimates this year (see article: '2003 Acura TSX Advances Honda Design').

Now, the question is whether these fans will (or can) pony up $50k -

- and, by corollary, whether those who have $50k to spend on a car are similarly enthusiastic about the relatively new concept of $50k worth of more Honda.