Acura Truck

Acura Truck

In 1986, Honda launched Acura as a separate brand to deliver luxury models to the US market (Acura as a brand does not exist outside of North America). This strategy has worked extremely well with the NSX (a sports car launched in 90’s), SUV’s (launched in the 90’s and relaunched in 2001) and luxury sedans (2004) – the strategy is simple, high-luxury, high-specification, high-quality at a much lower price than the competition. Acura has developed a reputation for being attuned to industry developments and customer trends which resulted in a foray into the SUV market with a rebadged Isuzu known as the MDX. This failed spectacularly but the company learned its lesson and with a new design, relaunched the MDX in 2001. The MDX proved a huge hit with the SUV-buying public and Acura is now also leading the charge on the “crossover” market with utility vehicles designed for general use, notably the RDX, a compact SUV which delivers comparable specification levels as the BMW X3 for a much lower price tag.

Acura was launched by Japanese car making giant, Honda of Japan in 1986. Acura is a brand designed and developed purely for the US market (outside of North America only vehicles under eth Honda brand are sold). Initially, Acura made a name for itself in the sports car segment but in the 1990’s, the company recognized a trend to larger vehicles and especially SUVs. The first foray into the suburban market was with a rebadged Isuzu named the MDX – this failed badly, however, Acura learned from this mistake and re-entered the market in 2001 with newly designed MDX and which rapidly established itself as a high specification SUV combined with a much lower price tag than the competition. The SUV range now also comprises the RDX, a compact SUV “crossover” utility vehicle in direct competition with the Ford Edge and Maxda CX-7 but which also competes directly with the BMX X3 demonstrating high-end value for money – the bedrock of Acura’s car making and selling strategy.