Canadian-market 2011 Acura CSX. This is not the ILX.
A near-luxury brand that has loaded its lineup with smaller, front-drive-based sedans, Acura is suddenly looking even more astute as it prepares to launch the Civic-based ILX at January’s 2012 Detroit auto show. That car certainly won’t lack for company in the compact luxury market: Mercedes-Benz is readying its new A-class and derivates, BMW is shifting the 1-series hatchback to a platform shared with the Mini, Lexus continues to build momentum with the CT200h, and Infiniti is preparing to use a Mercedes platform to create its own small car.
As is the case with the Benzes, the BMW, the Lexus, and the Infiniti, Acura plans to pitch the ILX to younger buyers. The company’s executives feel that it needs to do better job enticing youthful buyers to the Acura brand, and point to research showing that people in their 20s and 30s find brand name, efficiency, and styling most important; they say performance and vehicle size are less critical to this demographic. Pricing is expected to come in “well under” $30,000.
Simply calling the ILX “Civic-based” would, no doubt, raise complaints from Acura’s engineers. They say the ILX shares a common platform with the Civic but few actual hard points, an indication that substantial re-engineering has taken place. As examples, they point to the current Honda Accord and Acura TL, as well as the Honda Pilot and Acura MDX. The differentiation between the ILX and Civic should be comparable.
Acura did not provide any photographs of the ILX, but an auto-show-ready buck we saw of it was definitely infused with upscale style. The entire front fascia is Acura-corporate, with the same flat headlights and modified shovel-beak grille. (Acura execs realized they pushed too far, briefly, with the TL’s snout, and have since introduced a more restrained version.) Otherwise, the ILX looks like a modern three-box sedan. There’s a Hofmeister kink at the back corner of the greenhouse and door handles from the Acura parts bin. The rear deck is quite short, which could make for a letterbox trunk opening. An executive tells us that people they spoke to in the car’s target demographic—men and women in their 20s and 30s—really preferred sedan and SUV shapes. Fastbacks, coupes, and traditional two-box hatchbacks (like the Volkswagen Golf, for example) weren’t nearly as appealing, so they were nixed for the entry-level Acura.
The ILX will offer three powertrain combinations. The most popular selection probably will be a 2.0-liter four, available only with an automatic transmission. The Civic’s 1.8-liter engine, on which the 2.0 is based, makes 140 hp and 128 lb-ft of torque; we’d figure that the ILX’s 2.0 will offer horsepower in the 150-to-160 range and get a commensurate bump in torque. For enthusiasts (hey, that’s us!), a 2.4-liter four will be offered exclusively with a six-speed manual gearbox. Acura spokespersons weren’t ready to tell us whether output will differ from the 201 hp and 170 lb-ft delivered by the 2.4 in the Civic Si. Finally, Acura will offer an ILX hybrid with a 1.5-liter engine; we expect this to be a direct port of the system in the Civic hybrid.
The ILX we’ll see at Detroit in early January technically will be a concept, but as per usual Honda practice, will be only a lightly disguised version of the real deal. Expect to see the production ILX in showrooms sometime in the late spring or early summer.
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