2009 Acura TL

Only last year the Acura TL was one of my favorite cars visually and it was placed at the top of my list for what manufactures should strive for when designing a sedan.  But recently that all changed.  I remember when I first spotted the 2009 Acura TL.  I was driving home from work and I saw one pulling out of the LifeTime Fitness.   It caught my attention so badly I nearly rear ended a VW bug.

“What the fu-gly!”  I blurt out loud and quickly glanced around out of my top down Miata to make sure no one noticed that I was talking to myself.  “What the Heck is that and who was dumb enough to make a sedan that ugly?”  The car pulled out into the lane in front of me and I manage a glimpse at its badging.

“THE TL!.. THE ACURA TL!?”  I screamed.  The shock was over whelming and I couldn’t contain it.   The TL-S was one of the best looking cars in the Acura line-up.  I could feel the very strands of space and time unravelling about me.

“No! What was Acura thinking?”  I noticed a car pull up  next to me as I was screaming to myself.  The girl in the newly arrived Sentra gave me the “he’s a crazy guy driving a Miata” look and proceeded to roll up her window.  I probably shouldn’t talk so loudly to myself.

The trip home was long and arduous and I barely made it.  I was so shook-up that I thought these must be the end of days.  A meteorite was going to fly down and strike me dead.  I mean for goodness sakes, the TL is… is ugly.

Seriously, it is not often that I find a car company visually design a car that is worse looking than the previous model year.  How could they go from this:

To this?????

The only rest the eyes have is when they look at the TL from the side and even then you better be looking at it directly so as not to catch an eye full of the hood or the back end.  Oh the back end, I can barely tell if the car is coming or going.  Maybe that is why I don’t like about it, the weird pentagonal shape in the front that says “insert floppy disc here” and it’s carried over to the rear with the “eject disc here” aluminum stylized slot at the bottom of the trunk lid.  The 2008 model only had the pentagon in the front but the grill complimented the car not sucked the life-force out of the innocent by-standards who happen to lock eyes with Medusa.

The bottom line is this, the ‘09 TL is great if like getting poked with sharp objects in the eyes or visually injuring the loved ones around you but if you don’t like those things you may want to consider the previous model year.  I’m probably being slightly over dramatic about the looks but come on there is no way the looks are an improvement from the previous year. I can foresee a face lift for the TL in the near future.

Oooh, I didn’t see the interior.  Wow, that’s nice.

All Pictures copyright Honda Motor Corp.