A report emanating from Honda's home market of Japan today has claimed that the Honda Legend, better known to U.S. buyers as the Acura RL, is as good as dead. The official word from Acura is "no comment," so we want to know what you think.
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"We don't comment on future product," Acura spokesman John Kiewicz told Motor Trend.
Reuters, quoting the Japanese business daily Nikkei, is claiming that Honda will end production of the Legend/RL globally as well as production of the Japanese market-only Honda Elysion minivan sometime in the near future. The report also claims that Honda will drop the gasoline-powered Civic in the Japanese market as well and sell only the Civic Hybrid, at least until the next-generation Civic is revealed, supposedly in the fall of 2011. The idea, according to the Nikkei, is to shift focus toward green and low-cost vehicles globally, of which the RL is neither.
If Acura is planning to can the RL, it's the first we've heard of it. The facts, though, make this report believable. Despite a mid-cycle refresh for the 2009 model year, sales of the RL in the U.S. tanked in 2009, falling 55 percent from 2008 numbers to just 2043 cars sold the entire year. It hasn't gotten much better since then, either. Though June sales were up 21 percent, total year-to-date sales are down 17 percent through the first six months of 2010.
Why does Acura have so much trouble selling the RL? A look across the lot provides a very simple answer: the TL. As we noted when we first drove the refreshed 2009 RL,the new-for-2009 TL offers everything the RL does -- from the engine to the drivetrain to the technology to the interior space -- for thousands of dollars less. Issues ranging from the five-speed transmission to the underwhelming acceleration to the conservative styling and the worst-in-test fuel economy landed the old RL in seventh place out of eight cars in a recent MT comparison test. The TL, meanwhile, just narrowly lost to the Audi A4 due mostly to its controversial styling and sluggish acceleration in another comparison.
What's Honda to do then? The RL has fallen behind the pack and is now likely being cannibalized by its own stablemate, the TL, which has sold 15 times as many vehicles so far this year despite sales being off 28 percent from 2008. Will the RL be substantially updated for its next generation, or is the big sedan on the way out? Honda isn't saying, so we're asking you: what should be the fate of the Acura RL?
Source: Reuters
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