Acura ZDX: An Opportunity Lost – Here’s How to Make it Righteous



Dear Acura,

Despite the way you think and behave, you’re actually competing against the likes of BMW, Audi, Mercedes-Benz, Lexus and Cadillac. You reaffirmed this axiom when you dropped your excellent product names (Legend, Integra) in favor of meaningless alphabet soup nonsense (RL and RSX), so don’t deny it. Look, even Vigor is better than TL, TSX, MDX, and RDX. Combined. Why else would you drop your admittedly limited heritage in favor of Germanic-style nonsense? Because you, dear Acura, would like to swim in that pond. Only thing is, you don’t compete very well.

Now it’s true, Motor Trend loves your new TSX Sport Wagon. Though we do get the impression that you didn’t really want to build it. Not really. I mean, the TSX 4-door can come with a big engine and a manual transmission or a six-speed Auto. The Sport Wagon? An old 5-speed slusher and a barely acceptable 201-horsepower 2.4-liter inline-4. [Mea Culpa -- I mistakenly said that the TSX comes with AWD -- that's the TL, not the TSX. Thank you for pointing out my mistake, hyper angry commenter guy.] Put another way, Audi’s not sweating your new five door. At all.

Nor is BMW, Lexus, Cadillac nor Mercedes-Benz. Why not? More alpha-silliness: S, M, F-Sport, V and AMG. Even Infiniti, long confined to your tier of also-ran luxury car status, finally figured out that you need some sort of performance layer up top, even if it’s the poorly named and hardly baked IPL. Which brings me in a round about way to your nearly-great ZDX, and what’s wrong with it.

At first glance, not too much. Yes of course, in Peoria the design will come off as shocking, overly bold and subversive. That’s good! You’re selling a design statement; it’s supposed to clash with the neighbor’s King Ranch F-250. And yes, the ZDX is very difficult to get in and out of. This is also good, as it shows you ignored focus groups and common sense. You refused to compromise the design and we can tell. Especially when we’re talking about clambering out of the rear seat through those ridiculous half-size doors, a feat no woman can accomplish without her dress riding up above her navel. So says my wife. Besides, have you tried scrambling in and out of a McLaren F1 recently? Awkward! Anyhow, the ZDX’s design is fantastic.

But driving it, well… how do the kids put it these days? Not so much. See, it’s got 300 horsepower and that’s pretty cool… if it were still 1996. Here’s why. The Toyota Camry makes 268 hp. The Honda Accord has 271 ponies. The Chrysler Town & Country makes 283 hp. Oh, then there’s the new Hyundai Sonata Turbo with its 2.0-liter humdinger that pumps out 274 (probably underrated) horsepower and can hit 155 mph before fuel cutoff with 2,000 rpm still in reserve. To reiterate, in 2011, 300 ponies ain’t shizzle. Nor is the ZDX’s slow-shifting, dim-witted 6-speed automatic. Even with the tiny little paddles behind the steering wheel. As Ed Loh said in our recent long term ZDX report, “The only thing missing is breathtaking forward velocity.”

Well, not quite the only thing. I do applaud you for refusing to sell out the ZDX’s design, but why is the interior only half-way there? For instance, you have that nifty trick where the radio buttons turn black when the stereo’s off, but illuminate when it’s on. I can’t get enough of that. However, those same space age controls are sitting on top of the same crude plastic controls for the nav system found in the Honda Odyssey, among others. Why would you do that? Why, on a car that looks this good, would you let anything seem out of the date? Why isn’t every little piece of the ZDX a massive, face-slap of a statement?

Here then, is how to make the ZDX righteous — and I won’t even charge you a lofty consulting fee. Turbos, two of ‘em. If Ford can extract 365 horsepower from its EcoBoosted 3.5-liter V-6, you should have no trouble squeezing at least 400 hp out of the ZDX’s 3.7-liter engine. Of course, a little birdie of an engineer at Ford told me they can actually get 600 horsepower out of the SHO’s mill without too much hassle, but for the sake of longevity they don’t bother. Anyhow, Acura, you should shoot for 500 hp. Why the hell not? And remember, that last question is the same thing BMW’s M Division asks themselves every time they even smell an X6 M.

Let’s talk transmissions. The one you got in the ZDX is maybe OK-enough in the MDX, but for ZDX duty it sucks. Even in Sport mode. You could be brave and go with a manual. A sweet, slick-snicking, Honda-quality six-speed, three pedal solution would be ideal. Actually, your manuals would be ideal in basically every situation. But I digress. You have to think of your potential customers. Therefore, in order to increase ZDX sales (anything is up, right?) I’m recommending you go with a super-fast shifting dual-clutch. Maybe give the car a reverse rake while you’re at it.

To summarize: You made a brave decision when the ZDX went up for sale. A massively impractical crossover does not typically a great halo vehicle make, but at least the styling is polarizing. It drives wonderfully, too. I love the Super-Handling All-Wheel-Drive, I love the feel of the steering and heft of the wheel, and I also love the seating position. You’re high up but somehow still low down. But there’s a definite lack. Yes, you can get in front of that oncoming Touareg as long as its driver doesn’t put his foot in it. Is that… luxury?

So, the ZDX feels good but goes slow. Is slow bad? No, not on its own. But when you combine slow with a high price (about $50,000) and those arrogant looks, slow becomes bad. Bad becomes your potential customer shopping elsewhere. Sluggish performance makes the ZDX feel silly and cartoonish. All that fearless design is just wasted. The ZDX can’t transcend what it actually is: a rebodied MDX. Which is a shame, and a missed opportunity. How many more of these can a brand sustain, Acura?

yes, the ZDX is very difficult to get in and out of. This is also good, as it shows you ignored focus groups and common sense.

Now it’s true, Motor Trend loves your new TSX Sport Wagon. Though we do get the impression that you didn’t really want to build it. Not really. I mean, the TSX 4-door can come with a big engine and a manual transmission or a six-speed Auto. The Sport Wagon? An old 5-speed slusher and a barely acceptable 201-horsepower 2.4-liter inline-4. [Mea Culpa -- I mistakenly said that the TSX comes with AWD -- that's the TL, not the TSX. Thank you for pointing out my mistake, hyper angry commenter guy.] Put another way, Audi’s not sweating your new five door. At all.