It's still better then the beak....
I agree. But I really hope they do not somehow insist (like on the current face) that the new Acura Precision Concept grill
must makes it's way onto the Gen 2 refresh to match the future line-up. It does not have to be this way to be successful and imo this branding approach of matching the face (which may have been a result of design-by-committee in the past for this model) has few examples of success
for the kind of category Acura is in.
As a company, Acura has less in common with Ferrari, Lotus, McLaren, Porsche, Lamborghini and any other major supercar competitor and more in common with (don't flame me for this) Chevrolet, Dodge and Nissan. The aforementioned cars each have strong family resemblances from one model face to the next but
they do not have the wide gamut of model offerings as the latter mentioned group. Acura/Honda shares more with the kind of line-up ranging from the Cavalier to the Colorado to the Corvette, offering economy class sedans, pickup trucks, and as a benchmark their Corvette did the Nurburgring in 7:19 (13th fastest All-Time). Dodge has the same gamut of offerings like the economy Dart, the Durango, etc. and their Viper doing the Nurburgring in 7:12 (7th fastest All-Time). And finally Nissan with their Versa, Sentra, Maxima, etc. and their GT-R tearing up the Nurburgring in 7:08 (5th fastest All-Time). Our NSX-R as a reminder did it in 7:56 and is ranked 97th All-Time.
The front of the GT-R does not share headlights with their Pathfinder (like the NSX does with the MDX), the front of the Viper looks nothing like the Dodge Dart (like the NSX shares w/the Honda Accord), and the Corvette bears no resemblance (of any front element) with Chevy's SS Sedan (like the NSX beak does with their ILX). As a quick reminder, the Gen 1 NSX did not share elements with the Legend, the Integra, or the Vigor. In contrast, the Gen 2 concept went from super cool headlights for ex. to lamps that match the
entire lineup. There are exceptions to all of this of companies matching face treatments across their economy to supercar lineup like Toyota/Lexus. Whether you like the snowplow look or not they
reported selling over 650,000 cars last year with double digit percentage gains in every one of their global markets. Is Acura trying to be like Lexus by having followed step in this regard last decade? Or are they really trying to be more like Audi who also does this from their A3 to S8 to Q5 to R8?
With the design team now becoming hopefully more autonomous w/their internal changes, in the years to come I hope they can now design a refresh w/out any design parameter constraints put upon them from any outside dept other than what they decide in-house as being the absolute killer best!
