The Acura ILX is a curious move for the automaker because Acura has not historically attempted to fill the small sedan market segment. Of course there was the Integra throughout the 1980s and ‘90s, but that was always seen as a more upscale version of the Honda Accord. In some ways the ILX is a nod to the increasingly fuel-conscious nature of modern society, which is encouraging people to go smaller, consume less, and promote a harmonious and positive life.
It’s this type of tranquil, “How are you, man? No, I mean how are you really?” conscientiousness that pervades the ILX. Need to give your friend a lift, but she’s a little self-conscious about being tall? No problem—all five seats are geared for maximum head and knee room. Want to support the environment but feel guilty about enjoying the responsiveness of a purely gas-powered engine? Relax your vibes—the 35 mpg overall rating is just 3 mpg short of the hybrid version.
Leith Acura
Our guide on this test drive is Kerry Leeburn, a senior sales consultant with Leith Acura who has been with Leith since 2011. Kerry has the professionalism and easy confidence that is typical of people who have a real respect for their product, and it was a pleasure to learn about the ILX with him. As he walked us around the car and pointed out the various features and design decisions that have been made since the ILX was introduced just two years ago, we were struck by how much character the car possessed for something of its size. Size usually means economy, not luxury, yet the ILX is fearless in retaining that upscale nature.
Let’s face it: buying a luxury car has a certain stigma because of the Recession and economic downturns around the world. No one wants to say that they flat-out just want a luxury car, but at the same time leather seats are really nice, our smartphones have Bluetooth streaming anyway, roadside assistance is a gem when you’re out of gas, and acoustic noise cancellation makes having conversations with your friends that much easier. The ILX is about making luxury available in a vehicle segment that most automakers don’t see as part of the luxury class.
The ILX
From the push-button start, the 2.0-liter four-cylinder kicks off with basically no more than a hum, a cheerful confection of murmurs and pulses, as well it should. This is no enormous engine that demands reverence and awe from everyone it meets. It’s a modern, highly-efficient engine that’s been refined by a company with decades of experience producing reliable, effective motors. Because the ILX uses the I4 engine derived from the Honda Civic’s, the amount of torque—mechanical-speak for power—available at any given moment is almost always the maximum amount possible.
Unlike the Civic, the ILX uses a traditional five-speed transmission. Using a fixed number of gears allows for better performance than a continuously variable transmission like the Honda Civic’s can produce, at the cost of somewhat reduced fuel economy. The car still wants to operate as efficiently as possible, however, which means that when you really want to go, there is no subtle or gradual way of doing so. Push the gas pedal way in and the ILX will get the hint that power is needed. A millisecond of gear selection and now the murmuring is a rankling of buzzsaws, a tearing through speed and sunlight that surprises you because up until now the car has been so, well, sedate.
The Ride
What is sedate though but another way of saying too skillful to brag and too modest to care? Slide the ILX across several rows of railroad tracks and the suspension blots up their ripples like a rag on a wooden table. A couple smears of vibrating bumps and you’re back on plain asphalt, if you ever noticed you’d departed. Get caught up talking about True Detective and what it all means, deep down in its core, then slam on the brakes when the next car stops short, and find the ILX choosing to bring you to a nimble halt with a smoothing, chillaxing motion. Slamming? That’s what brakes from the ‘90s did, right?
On the city streets of Apex and Cary, we found the instant mileage bar—a slight rectangle of white light reminiscent of 8-bit video game systems—an easy indicator for our fuel efficiency. Coast a bit on the 45 mph lanes and the white rectangle lights up in full, showing how much inertia can save on gas. Accelerate hard in a turn and you’ll see the bar illuminate to maybe about one-third its capacity—around 13 mpg. It’s an easy way to keep track of how efficiently you’re driving, and is just a flick of the eyes away from the road.
The Controls
The experience of adjusting controls while driving is a simple affair thanks to the style-heavy design of the interior. Acura certainly has a thing for V-shaped design decisions, which means that the pleasingly narrow center console slants upward with sharp diagonals, leaving space for only the most essential of controls. Many cars throw you into a veritable McDonald’s ball-pit of switches, buttons and touchscreens. The ILX, by contrast has three tightly-gathered clusters: climate, navigation and audio.
And honestly, after sinking back into your firm leather chair and sending the soft-bore hefted steering wheel toward your destination, is there any reason you’d want to fight your car just for a bit of music? It’s much simpler to click the command button and ask the car to play some Coldplay, but not too much Coldplay, just enough Coldplay to get you onto the main roads and ready for something a bit more spirited.
The Joie de vivre
The voice command interprets this without a problem, and the tremulous existential notes proceed whether from a CD or USB-connected flash drive or MP3 player. For us it was wireless streaming via our Bluetooth connected iPhone. And it was Bat for Lashes, not Coldplay—we didn’t want to lose face in front of Kerry.
Other things we appreciated were the three angles the rearview camera in the dashboard showed. You had your standard backup view, a top-down view to show how close you are to the next bumper, and a wide-angle view to help you see around rear corners. We can picture the lens of the camera contorting itself into all sorts of funny faces to give us these vantage points, but in reality it’s just a beep of the console’s main button as you cycle through the different perspectives.
We also liked the unusually tall V-shaped instrument panel which is visible through the generously-gapped steering wheel to see how fast we’re going and the like, no craning or seat-shifting required. The two-tone black and tan color of our interior made the inside look like it was straight out of a magazine when you open the door, helped by the silver accent metals and dark carpets.
Conclusion
All in all the ILX puzzles because while we expect to see amazingly high-quality materials in historic buildings and art museums, but we don’t expect them in our gas stations and our drugstores. It’s a challenging car because it consolidates the luxury experience into a form so minimalist and lightweight that it upends the association that luxury=size. How has this not been done before? We’re not sure. But we’re glad that it’s here now.