Gadgetory

Honda Accord Coupe I think we have an oxymoron there I mean you're saying you've got the sporty version of one of America's most white-bread everyday cars let's find out if there's really something pulling two directions here as we drive the 2013 Honda Accord Coupe EXL v6 with navigation in other words top of the line and check the deck I wouldn't blame you for saying it's just a sedan Accord with two doors removing some sheet metal stuck where they used to be but not true this car is actually a little over two inches shorter from nose to butt and has two fewer inches between the wheels the wheelbase that's some pretty substantial difference from the sedan so this is a car that's actually a different platform in many ways and most importantly it looks hot there's no denying that the first day I'm struck buying the Accord Coupe is two things right off the bat you often ask about first of all how is the Headroom I'm about six-two and I can go solo in this seat that I feel too far from the ceiling so good news for you tall folks now looking at the trim you probably also notice that you have double vision you're not hungover this is the new Honda Acura thing dual screens that sometimes complement each other sometimes they go different directions like right now I've got nav on the top media on the bottom that's great but other times it gets real wonky like when you want to go enter a destination you get this weirdness I've got two entry screens and that makes no sense to me check out our review on the Acura RLX which is their new flagship and of course uses a very similar system to get a real deep dive on where this works and doesn't let's get there some media sources now and you go to the audio screen over here and by the way I hate that stupid little interstitial screen that shows everything just weird to me here's a nice display of the AHA music service this is being done through something called the Honda link app once you install Honda link AHA is wired into there and you get a really nice stream from the internet hand it off to the head unit experience from your smartphone now because we have navigation that by the way is an up trim option it's a different level of the car that also brings you 16 gigabytes of hard drive storage you see that when I go through the sources here and of course you also see Pandora is in there USB and aux are down here supporting iPod as Honda has done rather nicely and the music on the hard drive or on your iPod is available by voice command for artists or titles you can actually talk to the music collections on those two devices over here on the left you can see these guys here there's an economy button that kind of dampens the behavior of the vehicle obviously we've got a manual transmission we'll talk about in a minute so it does not affect shift profiles and down here is the lane departure warning button we have lane departure warning on this car but it's passive all that does is tell you you're drifting it doesn't correct it same thing goes for forward collision warning FCW will flash this guy right up there a series of yellow LEDs it will blink right up inside the windshield if you're about to rear-end somebody last thing I want to show you is this little button here on the turn signal stalk if you push that or if while you're driving you execute a right turn signal you get this interesting view in the screen which is looking out of a camera on my outboard right hand side mirror this is pretty unusual now up here in the engine room you've got the three and a half liter v6 now that's the premium engine on the Accord whether it's cooper sedan most up we're going to ship with a four but this is a nice motor it says earth dreams here on the front that's nice I'm happy for them we really got here is a pretty conventional but damn nice v6 it does not have direct injection though Honda's fours do now the numbers are good though 278 horsepower 256 foot-pounds of torque it's this roughly thirty four hundred pound of cord up to sixty and a sprightly 5.6 seconds front wheel drive only there's no all wheel drive version on this guy now the mtg's know a thing of beauty was the manual 1828 not bad big improvement with the automatic you get to 21 32 so you shave quite a few mpg off gig over the 16 but the six-speed is really cool by the way if you get the six-speed you also give up active cylinder management in the automatic this car can run on its newest green cylinders when you're loafing for that better fuel economy but with a manual that can't communicate with a transmission enough to know when it should do that as a result it doesn't do that you're always running on all six that's part of why this guy's going through the first thing you notice in this Accord Coupe is that the powertrain is really direct this is not what you expect from an accord you expect it to be kind of a driving appliance this is actually more or less a road machine first of all that v6 has good numbers on paper but more importantly great responsiveness on the road it's a right now engine it doesn't stop and think when you tell it to start to spin now front-wheel drive only as I mentioned the car handles very well it's not a street fighter it's more refined than that but it's absolutely no problem to toss on a little corkscrew road like this and it feels great it's very good ride quality all the time which you don't always get from a car that has a really gutsy chassis and suspension of course being Honda it can't help itself but have a giant speedo and a little tack that kind of lets the air out of the performance balloon in terms of the ergonomics but you can live with him great gearbox nice clutch is the real drivable car that feels very much like it was built around this transmission not sort of had that added on as another option this is going to turn out to be one of the sleeper hits of the year in my book I'm pretty sure that even though we're only mid 2013 right now because it's a nice balance of being a refined car that can also give you a grin on the open road it's very much got a little bit town and country built into it I didn't expect that coming into it I didn't expect a sharp powertrain a great manual gearbox refined ride and at the same time sporting feedback coming back to me all wrapped up in what I think's a pretty hot looking car so Honda good work okay an accord v6 coupe EXL not with nav yet it's 31 one delivered the navigation package is 2 grand more get you the nav voice command for it FM based traffic so no need for satellite radio if you don't want it and it also goes in that 16 gigabyte hard drive space that you'll probably never use on top of that you can get backup sensors for 520 bucks to augment that otherwise very good camera and that's about it when it comes to going CNET style so all in here and about 33 6 now bottom line the Accord is a very grown-up kind of sporty coupe one of the most direct competitors would be the Hyundai Genesis Coupe but that's a whole different age demographic to be honest this guy doesn't sell at all compared to their sedate I mean it does okay but why they make it not entirely sure it's not different enough to be a halo car doesn't sell enough in volume to be a major business success but I'm still glad they do