Battle of the Entry Level Luxury cars, part 2.

As we can see that American Auto Makers are largely unwilling to change their products in order to fit the current needs of this segment, but at the mean time the Japanese are doing everything they can do dominate every segment out there.

-Land of the Rising Sun

1. Acura

Honda has been in the US market as long as we can remember, and they have always dominated in one particular segment, the cheap family sedan segment. But this once racing bike manufacturer is still known more overseas for its high performing, high revving VTEC engine. The engine is said to be the father of all modern day variable timing engines, and the architecture has remained same for few decades. Honda's brand image in the US was cheap, reliable but what people didn't know was they were selling a lot more expensive track cars with the VTEC engine. Therefore they had to do something about all their high performance cars segment since everyone that was buying a Civic in the US wasn't about to dish out double premium for a different Honda. In coming the Acura name tag that is specially created for the North American market. This was a absolute genius move at the time as Honda pretty much moved all of their high performance cars like the Integra and others that were slightly better built than the Civic and Accord. Over the years they have enjoyed the success Acura has brought them in North America, but you can hardly call Acura a substantially different brand than Honda. The Integra was built much like its brother the Civic, in another word a tin can. The only luxury option you could find on it was leather seats and that was on the higher trim. As time went on Honda realized that they need to improve differentiating Acura from its core Honda cars in order to face changes in the luxury car segment. Long story short, Acura took in the features that made German auto makers great in the modern era. In coming the entry level Acura TSX as Acura was phasing out all of their boy racer "tin can" cars such as the Integra and the RSX. The TSX is built like a hybrid of an American and German car. It is big and heavy, like a real luxury car but there lies the underlying problem. The VTEC engine traditionally is a small 4 cylinder engine, and it works well on Honda cars because they are built like a real track car, small, extremely light, so when you revving it up to 8000 RPM for 170 HP the car is very fun to drive. But not when you are powering a 3500 lb beast. As a entry level luxury car the TSX is much larger than the BMW 3 series and even the Mercedes C class, its not quite as big as the Cadillac CTS but its close. But the CTS is powered by a large 300 HP V6 not a small 200 HP I4. So when you drive the TSX it has lost all the fun factors that made the Integra great, its not nimble, its not fast, and it definitely feels like you have to work way too hard to get the car going, all killer no nos for a luxury car. Good thing Honda is not an American brand, they quickly changed that by putting a large V6 engine as an option on the TSX, but this had 2 implications. One is that with the V6 the TSX starts at 35000 dollars which is at least 1000 dollars more than the BMW 328i and Mercedes C300. Two it is now about the same price as the Acura TL which is much larger car filled with much more luxury options. Over all it feels that Acura has lost its soul in this car, even with the V6 it drives like a big family sedan rather than a nimble sport sedan that everyone strives to be at this entry segment, it drives too much like the Honda Accord if you will and coincidentally the TSX for North America is no more than a re-badged Honda Accord in other countries.



that guy is obviously an Acura fanboy, the car is 20 inches longer and more than 1000 lbs heavier than the Integra with the SAME engine, you do the math.

2. Lexus

Like Honda, Toyota followed its lead in differentiating some of their more expensive cars for American market, and thus the Lexus brand was born. Unlike Honda, Lexus came much later than Acura and Toyota kept some of its high performance and luxury cars under the Toyota name brand even after Lexus was well established. Toyota had the ultra high performance and expensive Supra under its name as well was the highly expensive luxury cars such as the Avalon and Land Cruiser. Lexus however, Toyota wanted it to make completely different cars not just for the US but internationally instead of re-badging everything and leave the Toyota name on there outside of America like what Honda is doing. The Lexus IS, on the surface it looks closer to a German sport sedan than your good old boring Toyota but is that really the case? Many critics have said over the years that Lexus is just as boring to drive as a Toyota even though they may look sportier, and yes there are high performance cars like the Lexus LFA, which is a grossly overpriced Supra but that's different story. However the core cars are no where near say a BMW 328i which is a entry level car but still very fun to drive even to a car enthusiast. In another word, a fancy looking old people's car. Oh well at least they didn't just re-badge like Honda did, or did they?



3. Infiniti

The dark horse out of these three picks. Infiniti was on the verge of bankruptcy a few years back but now they are back and with a brand new attitude toward the entry luxury car segment. Instead of trying to be both luxury and sport and fail miserably at both like Honda and Toyota, Nissan decided to go for one thing at a time and do that one thing extremely well. Infiniti G37 comes standard with a 3.7L V6 that makes a whopping 328 HP which is 100 HP for than the BMW 328i and easily the front of the pack, and did I mention its the same price as the 328i? Infiniti knows that it can't not win the luxury crown from even Lexus or Acura so they decided to win as a sport sedan, and to be honest I have to agree with them on this approach. There just way too many luxury cars with their high techs or luxury options, but none of them will drive like a G37, at least not at this price range.



The Infiniti G37 is definitely my winner out of the three, not just because the engine but because what you get with your money. Out of all three, none of them look particularly good compare to German sedans but obviously better over the American competitions. Both Acura and Lexus can not compete with the German cars at the lowest entry point since both lack any real power to be exciting to drive the heavier cars, both need to be moved up to the much more expensive trim and bigger engine to compete so in a way they are not cheaper when compared apples to apples. The Infiniti however offers class leading power and enough luxury appeal to really compete with the best, if its not already the best.