Apparently, Honda invited some journalists to Japan so they could go check out new technology carefully packaged into existing cars, lest anyone reveal super-secret things like what the next Acura RL looks like. No matter, we’ve got everything below.

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Acura may be refreshing the ZDX for 2013, but the company has simultaneously signed the car’s death warrant, killing off one of the most reviled cars on sale today.

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Independent sales analyst Tim Cain has released his Worst Selling Vehicles list for September 2012, with not just one but three measures of poor performance.

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The next Acura RL will debut at the Los Angeles Auto Show. Here’s what it won’t have; Rear-wheel drive, a V8 engine, non-derivative styling, an endorsement from Harrison Ford and the gyroscope-based navigation system that debuted on the first generation car. Here’s what it will have.

In the eternal quest to adhere to “sustainability”, Lamborghini will apparently be fitting the Aventador with a start-stop system and cylinder deactivation. Am I the only one that finds the recent trend of eco-friendly supercars ridiculous?

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GM may not be announcing expanded production at Oshawa, but a few hundred miles down the 401, Toyota is ramping up production of the Lexus RX at their Cambridge, Ontario plant.

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If you believe Ken Lewenza, president of the Canadian Auto Workers union, the CAW is well on its way to organizing Honda’s Alliston, Ontario assembly plant. Lewenza told Ward’s Auto that “We’re getting some enthusiastic and strong support, but we’re not there yet.” The biggest problem for Lewenza is that the CAW has been in that position for almost two decades with respect to Alliston and hasn’t made any progress.

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So, you want a small, practical wagon with a little bit of Euro flair and luxury pretensions. Unless you’re willing to mix with the rabble in a VW, what are your options? Volvo V50? Dead. Audi A3? Not much time left before it’s discontinued in the USA. Try the BMW 3-Series Wagon if you want something German.

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Even though 85 percent of Hondas sold in North American are built on the continent, the strong yen is hurting the company’s Japanese exports to the point where Honda is losing money on them.

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Pursuant to our recent discussions of Honda’s spiral into the mundane – and the market’s warm reception despite this move, here’s another example of one of the big H’s vehicles picking up steam as it becomes more mainstream.

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With a few of our readers providing some particularly good insight into Acura’s ILX campaign based on their work in marketing, I’m submitting an ad for the TSX from 2009 for their consideration, as well as my own commentary.

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The ad, like all ads today, is aspirational, not reflective.  It is showing you something you want to be, not “a person like you would like these products.”  

The rest of the article talks about a sort of “aspirational fantasy” (my term, not theirs). JC Penny is trying to do it in their ad (discussed in the article) and Acura is trying to do it here. The problem is they haven’t quite got it.

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Despite debuting over seven years ago, extensively refreshed in 2009 and nip/tucked again in 2011, the Acura RL remains a mystery. Flagship products usually sell in small numbers, but the RL is one of the rarest sedans in America. This isn’t exactly been a badge of honor for Acura. Overlooked by shoppers who flock to the cheaper Acura TL and largely forgotten by the automotive press (after all these years, TTAC has never fully reviewed the RL) With a full replacement due next year in the form of the RLX concept, I hit Acura up for an RL for a week to see how a flagship product from a major brand could manage to sell just 56 vehicles in Canada and 1,096 in the USA in 2011. For those who like statistics, the TL outsold the RL by 2,850%. Ouch.

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We all know that the new Acura RLX will have a V6 and a neat SH-AWD system using electric motors and such – but how about the budget model, that revives the long-dormant four-wheel steering system from the Prelude, once known as 4WS!

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Murilee’s piece on the Acura Vigor brought back some fond memories for me involving that car, and an utterly bizarre bit of automotive trivia that was thought to be lost forever – a Japanese-market commercial for the Honda Vigor that features sexual deviancy (panty sniffing, anyone), Italian art house cinematography and the requisite badly-garbled English slogans.

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