Acura sets price of 2010 ZDX at $45,495

Acura’s all-new 4-door sports coupe, the 2010 ZDX, has an official on sale date of Dec. 15 with an MSRP of $45,495, which does not include another $81o for handling and delivery.

Since it debuted at this past April’s New York Auto Show, the American designed and American-manufactured stands out with its styling and performance numbers.

“Acura dealers are seeing strong interest from customers for the ZDX well before its official on-sale date,” said Jeff Conrad, vice president of Acura sales in a press release. “The ZDX is like nothing you have ever seen before from Acura.”

The run down:

ZDX will be sold in 3 trim packages:

a well-equipped ZDX

a ZDX with Technology Package;

a ZDX with Advance Package.

Power for each package is generated from a 3.7-liter, 300 hp, V-6 VTEC(R) with 270 lb-fr of toque while producing EPA numbers of 16/23.

Also standard on each ZDX is Acura’s SH-AWD (R) or Super Handling All-Wheel-Drive that boosts handling and ensures heightened all-weather and all-season road-holding capabilities.

Standard fare includes what Acura bills as the world’s longest panoramic glass roof, concealed rear door handles, and a hand-stithced leather dash, center console and door panels.

The Technology Package adds an Acura Navigation System with Voice Recognition™, AcuraLink Real-Time Traffic™ with Traffic Rerouting™, AcuraLink Real-Time Weather™ with radar image maps, a full VGA display screen and an innovative new multi-view rear camera. It also includes an upgraded Acura/ELS Surround® 415-watt Premium Audio System with a built-in 15-gig media storage system, which Acura says could hold up to 3,500 songs; a GPS-linked, solar-sensing, dual-zone automatic climate control system and Keyless Access System (with Smart Entry and push button ignition).

The Advance Package adds the following to the Technology Package list, including: a new blind spot information system (BSI), Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC), Collision Mitigating Braking System™ (CMBS™), an Integrated Dynamic System (IDS) active damper system, heated and ventilated front seats with Perforated Milano Premium Leather seating surfaces, premium brushed tricot headliner material and a sport steering wheel.

2010 Acura ZDX: Ferocious styling

The ZDX's ultra-rakish coupe profile is limned in a dark-tinted glass canopy that stretches from the hood all the way to the taillamp assembly. The sides of the greenhouse taper inward dramatically to the rear, creating outrageous rear haunches that might as well have been lifted from a Paris-Dakar Porsche.

This is the first Acura designed, engineered and being built in North America (Alliston, Ontario. That's Canada. Can you smell the bacon?).

The ZDX's Yankee designers -- all trained at Art Center in Pasadena -- have managed to transcend the dictates of the marketing weenies to make what I think is a lasting contribution to the designed world. Forget the modernism of the Tokyo skyline. The more you look at this thing the more you expect it to have a license plate from Alpha Centauri.

Based loosely on the mechanicals of the MDX, the ZDX's roofline is 6 inches lower, its ultra-rakish coupe profile limned in a dark-tinted glass canopy that stretches from the hood all the way to the taillamp assembly. The sides of the greenhouse taper inward dramatically to the rear, creating outrageous rear haunches that might as well have been lifted from a Paris-Dakar Porsche. The side window daylight opening (the DLO in industry parlance) is sports-car narrow, slitted and menacing -- the effect you'd get if you spit in Clint Eastwood's eye. To further de-emphasize the four doors, the rear door handles are hidden in the corner of the DLO.

The whole thing is as taut and engaged as a crossbow aimed at your temple. Nifty.

Five years ago, such a car would have remained an auto-show concept, a turnstile queen, virtually un-buildable. The rear quarter panels, with their complex hyper-paraboloid shape and deep "draw" -- which is to say, the depth of the metal-stamping form -- would have been too difficult and expensive to manufacture. Advances in tooling technology have changed that.

The ZDX's glass-to-glass panels around the panoramic roof mean there's hell to pay in fit and finish, wind-noise attenuation and weatherproofing. This is not an easy car to build.

Nor is it cheap to build. Acura lavished a lot of money on the interior, including couture-quality leathers on the dash, seats and doors; a suede-like headliner material; and a fully finished cargo area with plated metal handles and high-quality carpet. Another interesting bit of hardware is the new "monolith" center control panel, a bank of black switches that remain dark until the relevant systems are activated. It kind of reminds me of the "dark panel" feature in Saabs.

Under all its exotic skins and complex surfaces, however, the ZDX is a more-or-less conventional, and less compelling, Acura crossover.

Acura's ZDX Overpriced

Easily one of the most controversial designs for 2010, the Acura ZDX
looks as though it takes a page from the BMW X6's playbook.
With its sloped roofline, it certainly bears some cues.

Although most people will point to its facade as a key point of interest, we won't because something else interests us; its price.

Starting off just under $45,500, it does not seem to be that bad of a deal. You get: 300-horsepower, all-wheel drive, heated and power seats, rearview camera, two-zone climate control and Bluetooth.

Step it up a notch with the Technology Package, you drop another five large and you get the GPS navigation unit, Smart Entry, multi-view rearview camera, an upgraded sound system and more.

If this does not suffice and you expect more from your ZDX, then you can obtain the Advance Package, which includes: blind spot detection, active cruise control, Collision Mitigation Braking System, six-level heated and cooled front seats, and more.

All of this does not come cheap though at a hefty $56,045, not including the $810 destination charge.

2010 Acura MDX priced at $43,040

Priced at $43,040 (including a $810 destination charge), Acura’s 2010 MDX crossover was given a mild facelift and some extra features.
This puts the price of the 2010 MDX about $2100 more than the 2009 model.

The price increase is nothing to fret about since the premium includes some extra goodies. Standard equipment on all MDX trim levels now includes power tailgates, steering wheel-mounted shift paddles, a rearview camera integrated into the rearview mirror, and a new hill start function. Some 2010 MDXs continue to use the same 3.7-liter V-6 as last year, but it’s now bolted to a new six-speed automatic transmission, making it to achieve 16/21 mpg (city/highway).

2010 Acura ZDX

We’re tempted to believe that ZDX stands for “zero demand expected.” The new Acura ZDX is one of those genre-less oddballs that occasionally comes along, like the Subaru Baja and the BMW X6. They slip past the guardians of sanity at their home offices and drift into the market like pollen wafting on a breeze of optimism.

They often die quickly and are flushed.

Long ago we described just such a spore, the AMC Gremlin, as a Hornet with the useful space hacked out of it. Behold the 21st-century version: Acura’s MDX luxury people mover with at least some of the useful space hacked—no, that’s old-fashioned, it’s been carefully shaved, planed, and CNC-milled out of it.

This is styling that takes a toll. To make a ZDX, an entire seat row from the MDX goes sayonara, as does about 35 percent of the cargo space with the seats folded. Width and wheelbase remain unchanged from the MDX, and length grows slightly, but the ZDX’s roof is more than five inches lower, pruning just over three inches from the rear-seat headroom.

Getting in back involves a limbo stoop under the low-cut opening. Have first aid at the ready because foreheads will be whacked, and an ungoggled eye or two may be poked by the rear-door glass, which comes to a menacing point at the concealed door handles.

The upside? At least one seven-year-old thought the ZDX was the coolest vehicle he’d ever seen. There are, like, 22-hundred-thousand buttons and a huge sunroof to stand up in and secret compartments in the back for ninja stuff and you can fly to Alaska in three seconds on the navigation screen and you can open the remote-control hatchback from about a mile away. And stuff.

All of which is ironic, as the ZDX will appeal mainly to people who don’t have kids. Acura predicts sales of just 6000 ZDXs per year, knowing full well that in America’s vastness one could find 6000 buyers for cars with square wheels.

Prices should start in the mid-40s, slightly higher than the MDX, but one like our test car, with the extra hundred-thousand buttons of the Technology package (upgraded leather, nav system, premium audio, backup camera, and more) and the Advance package (adaptive cruise control, adjustable suspension, blind-spot warning, precollision warning, etc.), will land in the mid-50s. Feature to feature, it’s less costly than the 300-hp BMW X6 xDrive 35i, which starts at $57,125, but that’s like saying an aardvark makes a better pet than an ostrich.

The ZDX isn’t lazy, hitting 60 mph in 6.4 seconds, rather fleet considering the 4421-pound curb weight (about 175 pounds lighter than an MDX). The 3.7-liter V-6 makes 300 horsepower, as it does in the MDX, and the new six-speed automatic and cylinder-cutoff system are mileage stretchers. We saw 20 mpg.

Nor does the ZDX fear a curve. It’s a confident, stable handler, thanks to some steering-feel improvements Acura made after our initial write-up. Also credit the system named with our favorite Japanese hyperbole, Super Handling All-Wheel Drive. When understeer attacks, the system overdrives the outside rear wheel to help turn this big bronco. It works.

Acura TL 2010

Acura TL 2010

New available six-speed manual transmission
- Exterior colour: Polished Metal Metallic discontinued
- Interior colour: Taupe interior discontinued with Royal Blue Pearl, Basque Red Pearl and Borealis Blue Pearl

Completely redesigned for 2009, the Acura TL adds a six-speed manual transmission for 2010, available on the new TL SH-AWD Technology Package. It is the first time Acura has offered its Super-Handling All-Wheel Drive (SH-AWD) with a manual gearbox.

The TL uses a 3.5-litre V6 in the front-wheel version, and a 3.7-litre in the all-wheel; both use a five-speed automatic transmission with manual shift mode and paddle shifters, along with the six-speed manual available with the Technology Package.

Features on the TL include 17-inch alloy wheels, dual-zone automatic climate control, automatic headlamps, tire pressure monitoring system, fog lamps, heated mirrors with integrated turn signals and tip-down in reverse, Xenon headlamps, power sunroof, auto-dimming rearview mirror, exterior temperature display, garage door opener, LED footwell lighting, programmable LED interior lighting, power windows with front auto up/down, speed-sensing variable intermittent wipers, tilt and telescopic steering wheel with integrated audio controls, six-CD/MP3 stereo with auxiliary input and USB connector, XM satellite radio, eight-way driver and passenger power heated leather-trimmed seats, and two-position driver's memory.

The TL SH-AWD adds 18-inch alloy wheels, headlight washers, hill start assist, and sport grip steering wheel.