Acura TL

The Acura TL is a midsize luxury car from Honda's luxury Acura marque. It was introduced in 1996 to supplant the Acura Vigor and was a badge engineered Japan-market Honda Inspire sedan until the third-generation version. It is Acura's bestselling car.

1996 (1G TL)

The 1996 2.5 TL was available with the 2.5L 176hp (131kW) SOHC 20v 5-cylinder engine from the Vigor. The 3.2 TL used the 3.2L 200hp (149kW) SOHC 24v V6 from the second-generation Acura Legend. The very first 1996 Acura TL rolled off the assembly line on March 28, 1995.

Although it was designed to replace the Vigor, it also technically replaced the Acura Legend coupe. The 3.5 RL (Honda Legend in Japan) that debuted alongside the TL was a large car designed for a soft ride, in marked contrast to the previous two generations of Legends which were sport sedans with taut proportions.

The second-generation 3.2TL (the 2.5 was dropped) was built in Marysville, Ohio, alongside the Honda Accord. These cars were imported into Japan and sold as Honda Inspire in the Honda Clio dealer network, and as Honda Saber in the Honda Primo and Verno dealer networks. The only difference between the two cars were the front grille; the Inspire/Saber were also available with a 2.5L Honda J-series VTEC V6 engine exclusive to the Japanese Domestic Market (JDM).

1999

In 1998, Honda revealed the TL-X concept car, showing a preview of the second-generation TL which would debut a year later. The second-generation TL (now called 3.2 TL) was released in 1999 and was now derived off the USDM Honda Accord platform. It was available with a newly-designed 3.2L 225hp (168kW) SOHC VTEC J32 V6 mated to a four-speed electronic automatic transmission with SportShift. The very first 1999 Acura TL rolled off the assembly line on August 4, 1998. The only option on the sedan was a hard drive based navigation system.

2000 (2G TL)

In the second year of production, the Acura TL was given slightly more features, including a five speed automatic transmssion, with sportshift. The added gear allowed for slightly better fuel economy and acceleration when compared to the previous 4 speed automatic transmission with sportshift. Other notable changes include the addition of side impact airbags for the front passengers and a change of format for the navigation system. The 2000 TL switched the hard drive for a dvd based navigation system. Now, the entire continental United States was accessible with the navigation system. One could theoretically drive from one coast to the other with the new navigation system. The 1999 TL navigation system stored the maps in zones; there were 5 different zones for the U.S.