2009 Acura TL
Sorry, but this is not a review of the most powerful Acura ever built, the one from all the magazine ads. That would be the 305 hp TL with Super Handling All-Wheel Drive. This is about the 280 hp front-wheel drive version. At first I wasn’t so sure.
When I picked up my test vehicle, I had just gotten off a transcontinental flight from perpetually 75 degrees and sunny Los Angeles to be greeted by a brutal Northeast freeze with a just a touch of wind chill to make it interesting. With the sun already down for several hours, and my warm bed still an hour away, I wasn’t exactly in the mood to give the car a proper once-over before jumping inside, turning on the heat, and making a beeline for the highway.
Although I was positive that I was scheduled to get the two-wheel drive TL, for the first several miles I had a hard time believing that at least some of the power in this particular one wasn’t being directed to the rear. Granted, I wasn’t doing much more than snaking my way through traffic on your typically flat and straight American freeway, but even on the off ramps I could swear that I felt the back end of the car chipping in now and then to keep it on the right line. With constant throttle on decreasing radius turns a little extra steering could even get the rear tires to kick out a little bit.
