Acura RL - Honda Goodness--Multiplied

What to make of the Acura RL? A modern descendant of the original Acura Legend, it takes all the goodness of Honda cars--sturdy, reliable, efficient--and stretches them out to luxury proportions and is loaded with every feature you'd ever want.

The pluses are many--from the handsome, tasteful styling (although it is looking a little dated now) to the gorgeous sweep of wood across the dash. The road feel is taut, the steering is communicative and the car drives smaller than it actually is.

Where it loses steam is against the Lexus LS models, which offer V8's (even though you don't really need one) and are just a tweak bigger. The Acura's 3.7-liter V6 offers an even 300 horsepower and an average of 20 mpg (although I got 18.7 in my testing). No problem with that.

Somehow, even though the Acura Legend came first, Toyota has gotten folks to equate Lexus with "top drawer" while the Acura is "very nice." I personally prefer the Acura, but then again, if I were buying an Acura I'd more likely want the TSX wagon or even the TSX sedan with the manual six speed. And I'd probably take a long look at Audis and BMWs too while I was shopping.

But for a luxury car that's big not not too big and luxurious without being ostentatious, it's hard to beat the RL. It's not as popular as some, but you can think of it as a well-kept secret.