2011 Acura RL

The Acura RL is a car I hadn’t driven or thought much about in years, and judging by its sales numbers, I have plenty of company. Speaking in round numbers, only 2000 of Acura’s flagship sedan left dealer lots last year. Compared to the RL, the Volvo S80 is a hot item with 5000 sold; the Jaguar XF and the Lexus GS trounce it with 7000 sales; the Audi A6/S6 blows it away with 9000 sales; and it only gets worse from there.

But of all the cars that have been left behind in the sales race, it’s hard to think of one that’s as nice as this Acura. The V-6 engine spins out a healthy 300 hp (without the aid of a turbocharger or supercharger), and does so with the utmost smoothness. The car is quiet, and rides well. The fragrant leather interior is perfectly pieced together. Mostly, though, the RL absolutely exudes the kind of drum-tight solidity and zero-defect quality that blew our minds back when the Japanese luxury brands first came on the scene.

Car-magazine writers tend to dismiss the RL because of it has only six cylinders and a front-wheel-drive-based AWD system instead of rear-wheel drive. But look at it next to the similarly configured Audi A6 3.0T, and the numbers suggest a pretty close match. Both get 300 hp out of their V-6 engines, which they send via a six-speed automatic to all four wheels. Look closer, though, and you see that the Audi’s supercharged engine churns out more torque (310 lb-ft, to 271) and yet posts better EPA numbers, both city and highway.

Take a tape measure to these two and there’s no real winner. The Audi has a 2-inch greater wheelbase, while the Acura is 2 inches longer overall. The Acura has a relatively insignificant 1 cubic-foot more interior space. Price-wise, the RL’s $48,060–$56,110 base price range straddles the A6 3.0T’s $51,075 base sticker. The biggest difference is in the area of design, where the A6—even as an outgoing model (the new version is already on sale in Europe)—is far more avant-garde, inside and out, than the wallflower Acura. But still, does that account for the huge sales differential?

I wonder if a bigger part of the story is the RL’s position in Acura’s compressed lineup. Where the A6 has only the A4 below it, Acura has the TSX competing against the A4 and then the TL in between the RL and the TSX. And with the TL SH-AWD offering the same 3.7-liter V-6 and AWD, at a price that’s between $8000 and $12,000 lower, there isn’t much reason for shoppers to step up to the RL. And so they haven’t.