By Mark Elias
Tuesday, Oct 27th, 2009 @ 12:20 pm

As a fully grown automaker, Acura has a few SUVs and crossovers on the market already filling needs of various segments and buyers. So, with this complete portfolio, what is an automaker to do? How about announce another: The Acura ZDX .
One school of thought says that as a segment matures, it has the opportunity to become more specific. Another says that good design will carry the segment. And then there is the spaghetti theory: Throw enough stuff at the wall, and eventually something will stick.

Further defining a developing niche
Acura has bypassed all three and helped to develop a new segment: The four-door coupe crossover. A mouthful for certain, but could it be just what the brand needs or is it too little, too late?

One of the sleek new-generation of fastback-designed CUVs, the ZDX joins the BMW X6 as two of a kind in a new niche. They are both of the four-door variety, where the best feature seems to be the ability to stash and retrieve “stuff†from the back seats or cargo area. But that’s where these two rivals split off and take divergent paths in the road.

While BMW goes the way of the sporty family four-seater, Acura claims their new CUV to be for those couples or empty nesters in search of the “passionate getaway,†in marketing-speak. According to Acura, the passionate getaway (which sounds to us like the title of a raunchy late night series on Showtime) is for their new luxury customers who take their active and adventurous lifestyles seriously. Regardless, this vehicle boils down to catering for a party of two – even if there’s enough room for another couple to squeeze in.

The ZDX repackages some of the best features in the Acura lineup: Honda ’s bulletproof 3.7-liter V6. Check. The new Acura six-speed automatic transmission with sequential SportShift. Check. Super Handling all-wheel-drive. Check. It’s all there. Acura states the complete package should supply all the oomph for a weekend in the wilderness, complete with twisties through the mountains, all the way down to a round of golf or a cruise through the urban jungle where the ZDX will most likely will feel more at home.

The ZDX as revealed at the New York International Auto Show earlier this year, is the first design to be produced at Acura’s new Design Studio in Torrance, California. Using the firm’s prominent “can-opener†grille and pronounced shoulders, it is one of Acura’s boldest designs to date. It’s all fine and dandy up to the polarizing rear fastback appearance, which presents shortened doors when compared to the front pair of openings. The net result is a somewhat restricted entry and egress for rear seat occupants, not to mention less than friendly accommodations for taller passengers. We do like the clever use of negative space in the black accents on each door to hide the rear door handles.

Inside, the ZDX displays typical Acura (read: excellent) fit and finish with single-needle stitching holding down the leather facing along the dashboard and door panels. A simple layout awaits the driver in the gauge binnacle. With tach and speedo taking the commanding positions, flanked by temp and fuel dials, it is no fuss, no muss. An LCD info screen sits between them to display drive bias, tire pressure monitoring and the like.

The steering wheel features redundant controls for almost everything but the climate dials. Bluetooth, audio, and adaptive cruise control buttons are within reach and far enough out of the way to avoid accidental operation while in the 3 and 9 positions.

An available Integrated Dynamics System is operated by a dial located on the lower part of the center stack. Allowing control of the ride settings, it gives the driver the opportunity to tailor the suspension’s active damper system and speed sensitive steering. A comfort mode minimizes jolts while the sport setting emphasizes crisper handling.

The power of six
The 3.7-liter SOHC V6 produces 300 horsepower and 270 lb-ft. of torque coupled to the aforementioned six-speed automatic. We were impressed with the power and low-end grunt of the combination, and more so, the excellent NVH displayed on the Southern California highways and backroads during the vehicle’s media launch.

The Sequential SportShift six-speed tranny was actually engaging once we got off the main roads. Able to function while in standard drive mode, it reverts to normal operation once it detects cruising speed. Throw the main shift lever to S-mode and you are in row-yourself-mode with levers behind the steering wheel.

The SH-AWD system incorporates torque vectoring, which varies the torque distribution between front and rear, and then left and right wheels to move the power to where sensors feel slippage and allow the rear wheels to run up to 1.7 percent faster than the front set to keep the ZDX stable. And it works, as we saw while rounding the turns on the mountain roads leading up from Malibu. Credit would also go to the front-mounted independent suspension with MacPherson struts, and the multi-link independent suspension with trailing arms out back. Order the Advance package for the beefier stabilizer bars in back.

2+Freedom = ZDX
Acura is touting the “2+Freedom†motto for those who would be interested in a sport-coupe CUV. It’s probably the smart course of action considering that it is an extremely tight fit just getting through the rear doors. Fold down the rear seats, though, to see the ZDX really shine. Back cargo room more than doubles in the up position, from 26.3 cubic feet to 55.8 cubic feet with the rear seats folded down. That’s enough for four large golf bags and a couple of changes of clothes, too.

It’s a heavy sucker, weighing in at just shy of 4,500 lbs., which helps pulls down the fuel economy to a rather SUV-like 16 mpg city and 22 mpg highway.

Leftlane’s bottom line
The Acura ZDX a very competent vehicle, in typical Honda and Acura fashion, but in defining a niche so specificallyas they have done, we feel they have limited themselves right from the get-go. By saying who the car is for, it turns off those who might otherwise be potential customers as well. It’s not meant to be a volume player – and that might be a bad thing in this volatile market.

2010 Acura ZDX base price, to be determined.

Words and photos by Mark Elias.

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