Acura – Honda’s luxury arm with most of its business in the United States – has unveiled the second generation of its TLX ‘sports sedan’, and boy is it a real looker.
The standard TLX will now be offered in the US with a 2.0-litre turbocharged four-pot making 275hp and 380Nm of torque, but it’s the Type S (pictured above) that we’re truly interested in.
When it arrives in Spring next year, the Type S will debut an all-new, Acura-exclusive 3.0-litre turbocharged V6 developed by the folk who worked on the modern-day NSX’s hybrid powertrain.
We don’t have any specific power figures as of yet, but we do know that the Type S will also get Acura’s brilliantly named Super Handling All-Wheel Drive (SH-AWD) system that can send up to 70 per cent of torque to the rear wheels, and that whatever power the engine does produce will be sent through a 10spd automatic gearbox. Plus, the brake system from the NSX will be used to stop the thing.
Looks stunning too, doesn’t it? Designed, engineered, developed and built in the US, even the standard TLX is an attractive thing, but with the added spoiler, front splitter, rear diffuser and quad-exit exhaust, the Type S looks absolutely mega.
All new TLXs will be built on a completely original platform too – there’s no sharing with the Civic or Accord here – and base models will start in the mid-US$30,000 range. What that means price-wise for the Type S remains to be seen.
STORY Greg Potts
