– Detroit, Michigan

Acura is a luxury brand that is often dinged in comparisons based on sporting vehicles. Its sedans don’t raise one’s pulse so much as rear-drive competitors from BMW and Mercedes. Even the outstanding and tremendously quick NSX is more of a thinking man’s supercar when compared to a Porsche 911 or an Audi R8.

But in the segments where large volumes of vehicles are sold – crossovers and sport-utility vehicles – Acura does some of its best work. The MDX is the company’s most successful nameplate, and this 2017 RDX is, I believe, perhaps its most segment-competitive product, period.