The Acura TLX is an underrated sedan that excels in almost all departments, especially the driving dynamics. Add the Type S masala to it and you have yourself a sporty sedan that offers a decent luxury cred as well. Sam from ‘Sam CarLegion’ brought an Acura TLX Type S to the drag strip to take on a Honda Civic Touring. It doesn’t seem too fair, does it? But, this isn’t a stock Civic. It’s been tuned to put out 120 horses more than what it comes with. It’s still a lot less than what the TLX churns out, but the Civic is over 1,000 pounds lighter, too. The Civic enters this race as an underdog, but do you think it can trump its more powerful cousin?
The Civic Is Tuned, But Still Makes Fewer Horses Than The TLX
The Honda Civic Touring is powered by a 1.5-liter, turbocharged four-cylinder mill that makes 180 horses and 177 pound-feet of torque in the stock form.
That Was An Interesting Bunch Of Races
The cars took part in two drag races and two roll races. The drag races belonged to the TLX Type S. It dominated both the rounds right from the starting line to the finish line. The Acura weighs a lot more than the Honda, but let’s not forget it’s got a bigger V-6 that makes more power, and also an all-wheel-drive system that hooks better off the line. Well, 2-0 to the Acura in the drag races.
Next up were the roll races from 31 mph. This is where things changed. At kickdown, the Civic managed to sprint much better than the TLX Type S in the first round. Also, it wasn’t a close race by any means. The Civic won it convincingly.
So, for the second roll race, the cars were slotted in their sportiest settings. Sam in the TLX Type S decided to shift the gears manually. The Civic couldn’t manually shift since it doesn’t have any gears, so it would continue the same way (the only way, rather). The TLX managed to get a better kickdown and take a lead over its tuned cousin. But, a few seconds later, the Civic picked paces and managed to pip the Acura to get another win.
One interesting observation, however, is that Sam said he’ll shift the gears manually, but he didn’t. As he said in the video, he didn’t need to consider it as the TLX hooked better at kickdown. But, do you think manual shifting could have made any change to the result in the last race given how close they ended? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section after watching the video below.
