Acura RL stands for Rather Low, obviously

"Textured Soy Protein" (texturedsoyprotein)
04/20/2017 at 19:12 • Filed to: Interesting cars at work

Came out of work today to find this 3.5RL parked opposite me. Usually my car is much lower than other normal cars but not this time. The 1st gen RL is the last of the big window, low beltline Hondas, and that’s one of my favorite eras of cars. My grandpa had one. My car’s still pretty badass though.

DISCUSSION (11)

sm70- why not Duesenberg? > Textured Soy Protein
04/20/2017 at 19:17

That car does understated quite well. If only it had been a V8 and not FWD.

No Prius Needed > Textured Soy Protein
04/20/2017 at 19:25

Kinja'd!!!

R O A D L U X U R Y

Rico > Textured Soy Protein
04/20/2017 at 19:27

One of these was parked in front of my friend’s house and I told him “Man that car still looks good!” Those old Acuras have a lot of presence, more so than their current versions that’s for sure.

Textured Soy Protein > sm70- why not Duesenberg?
04/20/2017 at 19:27

That’s the standard knock against these, along with the styling being more boring than the 2nd gen Legend it replaced. But really, for a comfy cruiser, who cares? It has enough power to get out of its own way and lovely 90s Honda steering and double wishbone suspension. The refresh in 1999 (which this one is) gave a little more character to the front styling.

Bytemite > Textured Soy Protein
04/20/2017 at 19:42

Honda also did all the work of mounting the engine for RWD and styling the body for RWD, then proceeded to build a tranny that took extra steps to route the power to the front wheels...what the hell?

Textured Soy Protein > Bytemite
04/20/2017 at 20:18

They did that so they could push the front wheels further forward in the car for better weight balance, longer wheelbase, and yes, styling.

This is a 2nd gen Legend engine and transaxle.

Kinja'd!!!

Notice the black circle in the bottom right? That’s where the half shaft attaches. Most of the weight of the engine and transaxle is behind that point.

Honda did this as a way to improve fwd, not as a way to move toward rwd.

And again, for luxury cruiser type cars with not tons of horsepower, who really cares about rwd vs. fwd and how they handle at the limit? That’s not what the car is for.

I guarantee you regardless of driven wheels, drive a 2nd gen Legend back to back with an original LS400 and it’ll be pretty obvious which one is sportier. It ain’t the Lexus.

HFV has no HFV. But somehow has 2 motorcycles > Textured Soy Protein
04/20/2017 at 20:19

I should buy an RL. And slam it.

Bytemite > Textured Soy Protein
04/20/2017 at 22:53

I get that there wre other reasons for doing that...but these benefits are inherently already there in RWD. Why not just go RWD? What did they gain exactly from doing this that they wouldn’t have from driving the rear wheels?

Textured Soy Protein > Bytemite
04/21/2017 at 00:13

I am not an engineer who worked at Honda in the late 80s when they developed this layout.

But if I were to guess, it’s less of a leap to go from a fwd-only manufacturer to a still-fwd manufacturer with a funky transmission and the engine turned sideways from usual, to a full-on whole new vehicle architecture and all the changes in manufacturing needed to produce it.

Basically every 80s/90s Honda product had that inherent driving goodness in it even though on paper they’re totally basic commodity vehicles. But there’s a special sauce to them. I had a couple of them myself and it’s the truth. There’s nothing on the spec sheet that jumps out where you can’t point at it and say “this is the thing that made this Honda so nice to drive for what it was,” but it’s there.

Textured Soy Protein > Textured Soy Protein
04/21/2017 at 00:37

I am not an engineer who worked at Honda in the late 80s when they developed this layout.

But if I were to guess, it’s less of a leap to go from a fwd-only manufacturer to a still-fwd manufacturer with a funky transmission and the engine turned sideways from usual, to a full-on whole new rwd vehicle architecture and all the changes in manufacturing needed to produce it.

And again, rwd is not the magic unicorn frappuccino of vehicle dynamics and fwd is not the killer of all decent-to-drive-ness. Honda at this point in their history had extremely good steering and suspension setups that are still better than many, many cars sold today. Their manual shifters too. Yeah they had their front wheels driven but that doesn’t automatically ruin a car. Basically every 80s/90s Honda product had that inherent driving goodness in it even though on paper they’re totally basic commodity vehicles. But there’s a special sauce to them. I had a couple of them myself and it’s the truth. There’s nothing on the spec sheet that jumps out where you can’t point at it and say “this is the thing that made this Honda so nice to drive for what it was,” but it’s there.

Back when the first longitudinal Honda, the 1991 Acura Legend, came out, rwd and awd were much less common. BMW & Mercedes were doing rwd, Audi was doing awd, but it’s not like there were vast lineups of 400+ hp rwd luxury sedans, and generally competent stuff coming out of the American companies. They were making garbage, and the German car companies were way more expensive, relatively speaking.

I mean seriously, the 2nd gen Legend came out in 1991 when these comparably-priced wonderful options awaited you at American luxury dealerships.

Kinja'd!!!

And instead of that bullshit above, you could have this:

Kinja'd!!!

So even though Lexus and Infiniti had introduced rwd V8 flagships that were a lot more expensive than the Legend, the Legend didn’t need to jump up to compete with those cars.

theloudmouth > Textured Soy Protein
04/22/2017 at 06:44

To actually see the photo comparison back to back like that is jaw dropping for contemporaries. Amazing the US automakers still though they could get away with that garbage for so long after the Japanese made in roads in the US.