What happened to the Acura Legend? This is how Acura beat Lexus and Infiniti to the U.S. market

This episode will explain what happened to the Acura Legend. In the late 1980s, Honda, Toyota and Nissan were in a race to roll out their new luxury brands for the U.S. market. Out of those three manufacturers, Honda was the first to roll out its premium brand, Acura in 1985 as 1986 models–beating Toyota’s Lexus brand and Nissan’s Infiniti brand, which were still three years away from coming to market. In Japan, Honda revealed its new Legend sedan in October 1985. For the U.S. market, it was branded as an Acura, going on sale for the 1986 model year.

Acura’s new flagship sedan was the first of two cars to be introduced in the lineup, the other being the compact Integra hatchback–which, Like the Legend, was also sold as a Honda in other markets.

The new Legend was indeed a large car by Honda standards. Being almost a foot longer than the Accord, and even sporting more width.

Under the hood of the new legend was something a bit unusual, and that was the fact it had a v6 engine. Up until the debut of the Legend, The U.S. market had never seen a v6 in a Honda. Displacing 2.5 liters with 151 horsepower, the engine sounds modest by today’s standards. But let's keep in mind during that period of time, domestic cars were still utilizing carburetors and pushrods–while the Legends new V6 was built with multi-port fuel injection and four valves per cylinder–making it a modern engine at the time.

On top of that, while most other manufacturers were using MacPherson struts and beam axles for their front-wheel-drive cars, the Legend had a four-wheel independent suspension with double wishbones up front and struts out back as well. The premium luxury cars the Legend competed with did not offer a stick shift. This, however, was not the case with the Legend, since a stick shift was available for its entire model run.

We're glad you have an interest in the Acura Legend, one of our favorite cars from the 80s and 90s. This episode will get down to the nitty gritty and get you up to speed! Thanks for tuning in.