Despite having a dominant year with a record-tying eight class wins in the LMP2 category, the Lowe's Fernandez Acura ARX-01b might not be back for the 2010 ALMS season. The Indianapolis-based race team, one of the three original announced by Acura back in 2006, has failed to secure a major sponsor for next year and will cancel its racing program if it fails to find one by the end of the month. As is often the case, however, misfortune can often lead to opportunity. England-based Strakka Racing has made plans to purchase the Acura ARX-01owned by Fernandez Racing and will compete with the car in the European Le Mans Series next year as well as the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The deal has yet to be finalized, but Strakka has already informed the LMS organizers of its intentions and has signed British driver Danny Watts, who previously drove a Panoz Esperante GT-LM in the series.
When Motor Trend picks its favorite sport utility vehicle, the winner will have bragging rights for an entire year. And we'll know all about it, because the victorious company behind the winning crossover or SUV will shout it from the rooftops (and in print, TV and web advertisements) about their shiny golden award. We can argue all day long about whether many of the nominees can be legitimately be considered sportutlility vehicles, but either way, this year, there are 11 vehicles up for consideration, with pedigrees ranging from a single traditional body-on-frame SUV to a brace of competent and efficient family haulers and richly appointed luxury crossovers.
As Motor Trend Editor-in-Chief Angus McKenzie points out on the magazine's blog, there is only one traditional SUV on the list, and it takes the size and shape of the Toyota 4Runner. The rest of the vehicles are crossovers, with seven of the 11 candidates sporting luxury badging, three coming from General Motors and one stablemate to last year's SUV of the year, the Subaru Outback. When choosing the SUV of the year, MT says it looks at packaging, presentation and intended function, along with obvious criteria like aesthetics and performance.
The ALMS race at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca this weekend is Gil de Ferran's final race of his career, and he plans to go out on top. The Brazilian captured pole position yesterday in his Acura ARX-02a, which features a unique livery to honor Jim Hall, the man who de Ferran first raced for. The milk white paint and number 66 roundels mimic Hall's legendary Chaparral race cars, two of which were on hand at the track. Gil de Ferran's qualifying time of 1:11.206 was less than a tenth of a second off the class record, which was followed closely by fellow Acura driver David Brabham. Brabham and the rest of the Patron Highcroft Racing team need only to complete seventy percent of the race to wrap up the LMP1 championship.
The Lowe's Fernandez Racing LMP2 Acura team continued its season-long dominance by capturing its fourth pole of the season and hopes to record its eighth victory this year. Although the team secured the class championship at Petit Le Mans two weeks ago, it hasn't secured sponsorship for the 2010 season and hopes to make a good final impression.
In the hotly-contested GT2 category, Corvette Racing continued to prove that it will be a top contender no matter what class it competes in. Jan Magunessen edged out the Risi Competizione Ferrari F430 in qualifying for Corvette's first ever GT2 pole position. The main battle will be between the Ferrari and the Flying Lizard Porsche GT3 RSR, both of which are still in contention for the championship.
Acura calls its all-new ZDX "a provocative luxury four-door sports coupe," adding that it's a "passionate getaway" vehicle designed for "a couple, their belongings, and more." The proclamation is a twist on a pitch we've heard before, yet with an even narrower segment focus. While the marketplace has come to accept the stylishly squashed Mercedes-Benz CLS, Volkswagen CC and Jaguar XF into the non-sedan segment, this new niche – pioneered by the BMW X6 and accepted by consumers if only because the Bavarian delivers the goods – is still a substantial risk that could require a hard sell with pithy prose.
So to kick-off Acura's all-new non-SUV, the automaker invited us to Southern California to drive the latest addition to its growing family. Constructed on the familiar MDX platform and sharing its powertrain, the ZDX pushes the automaker's styling and innovation to the limit – it's certainly not bland or boring. However, is there enough substance under the style to win buyers in this newly targeted segment? What game-winning cards, if any, does Acura really hold with its latest "sports coupe" SUV? Follow the jump to find out.
The faster you drive, the more fuel you use. Common sense, right? Absolutely, but it's still helpful to see real-life data, as you'll see by checking out the results of a recent test performed by Consumer Reports. Not all cars perform the same at various speed limits, and as you might expect, America's most fuel efficient models are also the vehicles most affected by higher speeds.
A total of seven vehicles were tested by CR: a Acura TSX with a 2.4-liter four-cylinder; a new 2010 Honda Insight; a Lexus RX350; a Mercury Mountaineer with 4.6-liter V8; Toyota Camry and RAV4 with 2.5-liter four-bangers; and a Yaris with a 1.5-liter four.
As you're probably aware, today's hybrids are optimized for high fuel economy at city speeds and therefore lose much of their miserly ways on the highway. As it turns out, this was especially true of the new Insight hybrid, which lost over 15 miles per gallon moving the needle from 55 mph to 75 mph – the largest drop in the contest.
The 2010 Acura TSX V6 is something of a consolation prize. At the 2008 Detroit Auto Show, Acura showed off a new 2.2-liter four-cylinder diesel and said it would launch in the U.S. this year. A few months later in New York, Honda's luxury arm showed off the all-new second generation TSX sedan, and we expected to be driving the culmination of the two right around now.
Unfortunately, a confluence of events a few months after the TSX was shown caused Acura to reverse course and put the diesel engine on the shelf. As world oil prices hit all time record levels, the never ending construction in China and Dubai seemed to be consuming the entire world supply of diesel, driving prices higher and higher. At about the same time, the world came to the realization that loaning money to people who couldn't pay it back might not be a great idea after all. With sales in the toilet everywhere, Acura decided that throwing a gasoline-powered V6 into the TSX might be a better idea. Was it?
Remember back in the day when Honda was all about building two-doors? At various times between its own badge and its premium Acura division, the Japanese automaker had the Prelude, CRX, RSX, NSX, Legend, CL and S2000 – in addition to coupe versions of the Civic and Accord. A few years down the line and the S2000 is on its way out, leaving the Civic and Accord coupes to hold down the fort by themselves until the new NSX arrives in whatever form it takes. According to new reports, however, the Japanese automaker is keen to bridge that gap once again with a successor to the RSX coupe.
Based on the next-gen Civic, due in 2011, the new RSX (or whatever it would be labeled) is rumored to, like the upcoming CT hatchback from arch-rival Lexus, take on the likes of the BMW 1 Series, Audi A3 and Volvo C30 in the premium compact segment. If it happens, expect a front-drive layout with probable four-cylinder propulsion (if not a hybrid setup like the forthcoming CR-Z), but beyond that your guess is as good as ours, so stay tuned.
The Acura NSX is rare enough that you rarely see them on the streets. When we saw a mint condition NSX trolling the streets of Woodward during the Dream Cruise, we were reminded of just how much road presence Acura's first and only supercar actually has. If we owned a a mint condition NSX, we might reasonably be tempted to avoid driving it the weather forecast even hinted at rain, but unfortunately not all drivers appear to exercise care in wet weather.
Hit the jump to watch a beautiful NSX as it trudges through what looks to be nearly two feet of standing water. At one point, the water, which came as the result of a torrential downpour in Orange Park, Forida, was up to the side mirrors. The real payoff, when the video goes from sad anger-inducing to hilarious comes about 33 seconds in, when you can clearly see water pouring out of the closed doors of the NSX. It stuns us to think that someone would think it would be a good idea to drive a low-slung supercar through a flood zone, but it probably shouldn't.
A month after officially announcing the production version of the new ZDX four door coupe-crossover-thingy, Acura has just released over 100 new photos and full specifications. Like the TL sedan, the ZDX is largely a North American product, as it was designed in California and it is expected to be built at the automaker's Alliston, Ontario plant.
We already knew the ZDX was getting Acura's Super Handling All-Wheel Drive system and the company's 300 horsepower, 3.7-liter V6. Now we also know that it gets an Integrated Dynamics System to manage the electrically assisted power steering and adaptive dampers.
The ZDX has what figures to be an ample 26.3 cubic feet of cargo space behind the back seat. Less accommodating is the passenger space in the second row, where headroom drops to 35.3 inches and legroom goes to 31.3 inches from the TL's 36.2 inches. Apparently Acura achieved the cargo space by moving the rear seat forward to give head clearance from that sloping roofline. That's the price you pay for avoiding the humpback look of the Porsche Panamera.
See that blurry race car behind the Peugeot 908HDi in the above image? That's the new Audi R15, and when the 12 Hours of Sebring endurance race gets underway this weekend, don't expect these two cars to be in this order very often. After Monday's first full day of official testing at Sebring, Audi's third-generation Le Mans racer, the R15, proved that it was the car to beat. Audi is fielding two R15s this year, and the No. 2 car driven by dream team Allan McNish, Tom Kristensen and Dindo Capello scorched the field yesterday with a fast lap of 1:43.596. That was a full half second quicker than the other Audi R15 driven by Marco Werner, Lucas Luhr and Mike Rockenfeller, and 1.406 seconds quicker than the fastest Peugeot. Acura is also joining Audi and Peugeot in the top LMP1 class this year, though its cars fielded by two private teams were another 0.1 and 0.8 seconds slower than the Peugeots.
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