2018 Honda Accord First Drive: Put Down Those SUV Keys
– Bretton Woods, New Hampshire
The idea that Americans aren’t buying sedans any more is, frankly, false. While even a cursory glance at the trend lines will tell you that SUVs and crossovers are still surging in popularity, it’s unwise to go further and extrapolate that the midsize sedan is dead. Honda sold 345,225 Accords in the U.S. 2016 – still shy of the 388,618 Toyota Camry models buyers snapped up – which is to say, a whole hell of a lot of new cars.
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To say that getting the new, tenth-generation Honda Accord right is critical, then, is a deep understatement.
None of that is top of mind as I downshift from fourth to third gear, swinging the Accord Sport 2.0T I’m driving just a little wide so I can nail the apex on a brilliant little New Hampshirite back road. A few degrees of steering and I’m staring right down the barrel of the corner; I flex my right foot and feel the torque roll on, while the forested roadside speeds up just a little, and I mentally cross my fingers that I’m still a little too far south to worry about moose. Tidy.
From the humble 1.5 and CVT-equipped car, all the way to the top Touring trim with a 10-speed automatic and the turbo’d 2.0-liter, Accord has something good for all comers.
Not many of the hundreds of thousands of upcoming 2018 Accord buyers will spec out this slick six-speed manual and the t...
