DETROIT – Acura unveils its Precision concept car, heralding a new design language for the brand, today at the 2016 North American International Auto Show here.
“It is a design study model that literally will shape the direction of all future Acura products,” Dave Marek, Acura global creative director, says in pre-show materials.
Hallmarks of the concept, a coupe-style sedan, include a long dash-to-axle ratio, an “ultra” low and wide stance and, potentially pleasing detractors of the brand’s current Power Plenum grille design, a new Diamond Pentagon grille.
Deep, sculpted sides, floating LED taillights, and swollen rear-wheel arches are other exterior design cues of the Precision concept.
Inside, the car has a cantilevered center stack, double-layer instrument panel, plus ultra-thin floating rear seats and a new human-machine interface.
The latter promises a “more intuitive, advanced and seamless connection between man and machine,” Acura says.
Functions within the wide and curved center screen are accessed via a floating touchpad on the center stack.
Marek oversaw design of the concept at Acura’s California studio, where NSX designer Michelle Christensen was responsible for the car’s exterior and John Norman the Precision’s interior appearance.
Acura sales tallied 177,165 units last year in the U.S., the brand’s best volume since 2007’s 180,104 and up 5.6% from 2014, WardsAuto data shows.
While there is no mention in pre-show materials of the new design language being solely for cars, Acura officials have spoken of a new design language as being something that could spur interest in the brand’s cars.
Last year, roughly 109,000 of the brand’s sales could be credited to the RDX midsize and MDX large CUVs.
The TLX midsize sedan saw sales grow 146.1% to 47,080 from its introductory year of 2014, but the compact ILX and large RLX sedans tallied less than half that volume.
