Acura RDX

[Tom]

Acura sets $33,610 base price for new RDX ute

By KATHY JACKSON | AUTOMOTIVE NEWS

AutoWeek | Published 07/13/06, 8:41 am et

LOS ANGELES -- Acura's RDX SUV goes on sale Aug. 10 with a base sticker price of $33,610, including the $615 shipping charge.

The small five-passenger SUV is powered by a turbocharged 2.3-liter four-cylinder engine rated at 240 hp. It is Acura's first turbocharged vehicle in this country.

When the RDX is equipped with the optional Technology Package trim, the sticker price rises to $37,110, including shipping. The package includes a 410-watt audio system, navigation system with voice recognition and rearview camera, wireless telephone capability and a real-time traffic data system.

Acura expects to sell about 13,000 RDXs in 2006 and 40,000 in a full year. The company expects the Technology Package trim will be on about 40 percent of the vehicles.

[Tom]

[Colonel Cadillac]

The engine sounds good, the turbo will finally put some torque into that little 4-cylinder.  

[cozmik]

It looks like a RAV4.


Has anyone else noticed that more turbos are slowly creeping into cars?  

[Raza]

It looks like a RAV4.


Has anyone else noticed that more turbos are slowly creeping into cars?

First glance, I thought Vibe.

[giant_mtb]

Sounds a bit pricey...?  :blink:  

[thewizard16]

I think it's ugly, but I haven't been very happy with anything Honda has concocting within the last year.

[Raza]

[MX793]

Seems a bit more Rav4-ish to me.

[CaseyNPham]

In this country?

I thought Acura was America only. Have they moved to other countries too, or is this info a little off?

[Tom]

[JYODER240]

Japanese designers copy off of the rest of the world, what else is new?

[thewizard16]

Japanese designers copy off of the rest of the world, what else is new?

Of course, the Vibe is a Toyota/GM creation, so the Japanese are copying off of Japanese employed American designers...   Everyone "copies" everyone else to some extent, and with as many cars as are on the market, unless something is completely blatant, which this isn't too bad, I think it's pointless to say something copied off of something else. You can only have so many hundred vehicles before things begin to look the same even if you keep your designers locked in a cave for years at a time.

[Run Away]

I'd give my left nut if someone would put that engine into my car.

[Car Zeus]

looks boring.

[SJ_GTI]

Japanese designers copy off of the rest of the world, what else is new?

Of course, the Vibe is a Toyota/GM creation, so the Japanese are copying off of Japanese employed American designers...   Everyone "copies" everyone else to some extent, and with as many cars as are on the market, unless something is completely blatant, which this isn't too bad, I think it's pointless to say something copied off of something else. You can only have so many hundred vehicles before things begin to look the same even if you keep your designers locked in a cave for years at a time.

While Toyota did eventually Mimic the Vibe, it was a purely GM designed car (though using a Toyota platform in a 50/50 joint venture plant). The Vibe's design is/was unique to Pontiac.

Toyota liked it though (due to its success on the market) and eventually tried to sell it as a Toyota in Japan, and designed their own version for North America.

[TBR]

What are you talking about? The Matrix and Vibe came out at the same time, all of the mechanicals are pure Toyota, and the exteriors are completely different. The interior also looks much more like a product of Toyota, than one of GM.

[thewizard16]

Japanese designers copy off of the rest of the world, what else is new?

Of course, the Vibe is a Toyota/GM creation, so the Japanese are copying off of Japanese employed American designers...   Everyone "copies" everyone else to some extent, and with as many cars as are on the market, unless something is completely blatant, which this isn't too bad, I think it's pointless to say something copied off of something else. You can only have so many hundred vehicles before things begin to look the same even if you keep your designers locked in a cave for years at a time.

While Toyota did eventually Mimic the Vibe, it was a purely GM designed car (though using a Toyota platform in a 50/50 joint venture plant). The Vibe's design is/was unique to Pontiac.

Toyota liked it though (due to its success on the market) and eventually tried to sell it as a Toyota in Japan, and designed their own version for North America.

The ONLY thing unique about the Vibe is some slightly different (thought not a lot) sheetmetal from the Matrix. I believe when it first came out it had a couple features the Matrix didn't and vice versa, but now they're almost entirely the same except for a few cosmetic differences. And since the Matrix and Vibe were a joint project, (both cars came out at exactly the same time, since they're produced at the SAME plant) using Toyota platform and mechanicals, I fail to see how it makes sense for them to have had to copy a GM to sell it there.

I'm not being confrontational, but I have no idea where you got your information, and with the cars not being that old, and not that different, I can't imagine how you believed it was true.

Taken from Wikipedia and easily verifiable:
"The Toyota Matrix is a car manufactured by Toyota in Cambridge, Ontario, Canada and sold in North America.

The Matrix is the Toyota version of a joint venture between Toyota and General Motors; the GM version is the Pontiac Vibe. A third version was sold in Japan from 2002 to early 2004 as the Toyota Voltz. Although the Voltz was sold under the Toyota brand there, the styling was nearly identical to the Vibe. It has since been discontinued. Some would consider that the Matrix nameplate was appropriated from the popular film franchise to which Toyota also rebadged their Kluger crossover SUV as the Highlander (again, appropriating another film franchise).

Both the Matrix and the Vibe are identical mechanically and practically identical internally, but they are clothed in different sheetmetal to look somewhat different. Both vehicles are small but tall station wagons styled in a trendy, quasi-SUV fashion (called a crossover utility vehicle or "CUV" by Toyota) and marketed to a fairly youthful market segment. This type of car is often referred to as a sport wagon. They were introduced in the 2003 model year and based on the Toyota Corolla platform. It filled the gap in the Toyota lineup since the discontinuation of the Toyota Corolla station wagon in 1997.

Two 1.8 L engines are offered in the Matrix: the economical 1ZZ-FE, borrowed from the Corolla, which produces 130 hp, and the performance-oriented 2ZZ-GE borrowed from the Toyota Celica GT-S, which produces 164 (previously 180 in 2003, 173 in 2004, and 170 in 2005) hp."

[Raza]

Seems a bit more Rav4-ish to me.

The sloping hood looks more Vibe to me, and it's like they turned the third window around on the RDX.  But nothing says we can't both be right.

[93JC]

The ONLY thing unique about the Vibe is some slightly different (thought not a lot) sheetmetal from the Matrix. I believe when it first came out it had a couple features the Matrix didn't and vice versa, but now they're almost entirely the same except for a few cosmetic differences. And since the Matrix and Vibe were a joint project, (both cars came out at exactly the same time, since they're produced at the SAME plant) using Toyota platform and mechanicals, I fail to see how it makes sense for them to have had to copy a GM to sell it there.

I'm not being confrontational, but I have no idea where you got your information, and with the cars not being that old, and not that different, I can't imagine how you believed it was true.

You're wrong, you know. Vibe came first.

And GM designed most of the car. Toyota pre-engineered the chassis and the drivetrain of course, but GM did the body and the interior. GM designed a car using Toyota parts.

Vibe's design was completely finished by January '01. Matrix wasn't finished until '02.

Toyota sold a copy of the Vibe in Japan, called Voltz. An exact copy.

The Voltz, at the '01 Tokyo Motor Show:


See? The same. Exactly. They didn't even remove the arrowhead badges.

(Matrix and Vibe aren't built at the same plant by the way: Matrix is built in Canada, while Vibe (and Voltz) is built in Freemont, California by NUMMI)

[SJ_GTI]

You know, I wish Acura sold a TSX with this engine and AWD for the same price. That would make a nice 3er/A4 competitor.

[93JC]

I wish they hadn't made it look like a mutant 1.7EL.

[ifcar]

"(both cars came out at exactly the same time, since they're produced at the SAME plant)"

Wrong. The Matrix is built in Canada (Ontario?), and the Vibe is built alongside the Corolla at NUMMI in California. (That's why the Vibe became the Toyota Voltz and not the Matrix, it was much easier to get it to Japan from California than eastern Canada.)

[Colonel Cadillac]

You know, I wish Acura sold a TSX with this engine and AWD for the same price. That would make a nice 3er/A4 competitor.

Good call. The current 4-cyl is just too torqueless.  

[thewizard16]

The ONLY thing unique about the Vibe is some slightly different (thought not a lot) sheetmetal from the Matrix. I believe when it first came out it had a couple features the Matrix didn't and vice versa, but now they're almost entirely the same except for a few cosmetic differences. And since the Matrix and Vibe were a joint project, (both cars came out at exactly the same time, since they're produced at the SAME plant) using Toyota platform and mechanicals, I fail to see how it makes sense for them to have had to copy a GM to sell it there.

I'm not being confrontational, but I have no idea where you got your information, and with the cars not being that old, and not that different, I can't imagine how you believed it was true.

You're wrong, you know. Vibe came first.

And GM designed most of the car. Toyota pre-engineered the chassis and the drivetrain of course, but GM did the body and the interior. GM designed a car using Toyota parts.

Vibe's design was completely finished by January '01. Matrix wasn't finished until '02.

Toyota sold a copy of the Vibe in Japan, called Voltz. An exact copy.

The Voltz, at the '01 Tokyo Motor Show:


See? The same. Exactly. They didn't even remove the arrowhead badges.

(Matrix and Vibe aren't built at the same plant by the way: Matrix is built in Canada, while Vibe (and Voltz) is built in Freemont, California by NUMMI)

I did include the Voltz in the Wikipedia article, I knew about that. As for the date of release, I knew they were a few months apart, but I had assumed that was just so it wouldn't be painfully obvious they were the same car, not for design reasons. That's what I get for assuming I guess. Same with the NUMMI thing, I assumed that as with other joint projects the bulk of production would be done at NUMMI. I was wrong and sure of the information that was evidently wrong, so I apologize for stating it as fact.    

[Bikpub]

To early.