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Acura built just 91 examples of the ILX last month, here's why

The short life of the Acura ILX has been vexed by one glaringly odd standard equipment choice, mediocre reviews, getting outsold by its competition as it posted slower-than-projected sales and a pledge by Honda to upgrade its supposedly upgraded offering. Therefore, when Automotive News reports that just 91 of the Civic-based Acura sedans were manufactured last month - after a string of production months in double-digits - it would be easy to press the button for the alarm bells.
But that would be hasty, because it is actually the 2013 Honda Civic that is crimping the production pipeline of the ILX. The vastly higher sales numbers of the Honda meant that all three North American plants that produce it needed to crank up output to satisfy dealer inventory needs, including the Greenburg, Indiana plant that makes both the Civic and the ILX. As the classic guns-vs-butter Economy 101 lesson taught us - in which making more of one necessarily means making less of the other - well, the Civic is the gun.
Honda prepared for this eventuality by cranking out the Acuras while it got ready for Civic production. The ILX has held steady at about 500 units shy of company projections every month, and the current inventory represents about 90 days worth of sales. That makes Greenburg's ostensibly low numbers in line with the realities of the ILX, and the situation probably won't change much as Acura gets ready for the improved 2014 ILX.

2014 Acura RLX replaces SH-AWD with P-AWS

After teasing us with the thinly veiled concept earlier this year, Acura has officially taken the wraps off its all-new flagship sedan, the 2014 Acura RLX. Aside from its huge step forward in terms of styling and luxury, the new RLX could very well be the most advanced Acura model ever.
While the previous RL could have been one of the blandest luxury sedans of its time, the RLX builds on stylish cues introduced this year on the ILX and RDX. One of the car's signature elements is its jewel-eyed LED headlights that could end up rivaling Audi for the most distinctive in the business. The rear view of the car isn't as unique as the front, but no less attractive with LED taillights that have a slight BMW vibe and odd, chrome-ringed reflectors at the bottom of the fascia. The interior is exactly what we've come to expect from Acura with its dual-brow instrument panel and a sporty three-spoke steering wheel.
On the technology front, the RLX debuts driving features such as Precision All-Wheel Steer (P-AWS), Adaptive Cruise Control with a low-speed follow feature and Agile Handling Assist while the interior gets a high-end Krell audio system, cloud-based AcuraLink and a multi-angle back camera. P-AWS allows the RLX actively and independently adjust the angle of the rear wheels for better agility and braking. Acura ended up cutting almost 275 pounds from the RLX's curb weight (compared to the RL) thanks to the use of high-strength steel and aluminum.

2013 Acura ZDX

What Is, What Could Have Been, And What May Yet Be
History is largely unkind to losers. That's true in the world of politics and sports, and it follows on with a few caveats in the realm of automobiles.
In terms of cars, historic losers tend to be remembered in one of two broad ways. Every once in a while, unsuccessful or oddball models actually make reputational gains after some time away from the new-car marketplace. I consider the Saab 9-2X one of the recent poster children for this group; a car that moved like molasses on dealer lots in the mid-2000s but has morphed into a sort of hard-to-find, used gem in recent years. More often, though, that which was unloved when new remains unloved with tens or hundreds of thousands of miles on the odometer. Pontiac's seriously misunderstood Aztek has king status here (despite the wailings of oddball fan clubs across the nation), so much so that invoking "Aztek" as a pejorative stopped being pithy about a dozen years ago.