The secret of the big bet TLX built by hand by Acura is on the nose



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If the devil is hiding in the details, the particular demon of the Acura TLX PMC Edition 2020 is the outline of the grille to the finish of the bodywork. Although it may seem odd to judge a $ 50 sport sedan + super limited edition by its nasal trim, it is the disproportionate impact of the application of an extremely complex red paint that explains the reason to be from TLX PMC Edition.

For Acura, this is an experiment – and that was, to some extent, planned during the opening of the plant in 2015. Although it has been associated so far with the NSX, the supercar Hybrid Acura, the Performance Manufacturing Center (PMC) of Marysville, Ohio has never been designed with a single vehicle in mind.

Instead, Acura was trying to bring together in one place the best of its workforce, engineers, and process experts. Rather than the robot production lines responsible for mass production of the manufacturer's usual range, the PMC builds its vehicles by hand in facilities that in some places resemble a film tray version of a car factory. There, subtleties such as an extremely long painting application become a possibility, on time scales measured in days rather than hours.

The Valencia Red Pearl paint of the TLX PMC 2020 Edition, for example, is a five-day process, including drying treatment. It uses a so-called nano-pigment technology, which allows for deeper contrast levels and stronger color saturation. The PMC paint robots apply several layers of very high transparency mica, metal flakes and nano-pigments, followed by two clear layers.

This is not the beginning of a great bodybuilder project built by Acura. Although this allows a great flexibility of modification of the settings, extremely expensive modifications to implement on the classic TLX line, there is still a limit to the number of modifications that the PMC team can perform. Basically, anything that would require a new stamping is beyond the scope.

The overall capacity of the CGP itself is another ceiling. Although Acura has thought from the outset to production beyond the second-generation NSX, the requirements for manual car construction still face certain limitations. Only 360 copies of the TLX PMC 2020 edition will be created and numbers less than 1,000 seem likely for any future repetition of the strategy.

The next step will be the MDX PMC edition, taking the same approach. In the process, it would seem that one of the most common complaints of MDX buyers is that they can not get both the A-Spec package and the Advance package, the latter including things like the display head high. With Acura currently selling all the MDX they can produce, it's simply not practical to change the packaging by adding an extra combination of toppings.

The PMC edition does not address this particular practical constraint and that is why the Acura team is particularly excited about this new project. What can look like a sophisticated TLX is really something much more ambitious for the automaker. A scramble between mass production at one extreme and that at the difference.

Acura is not able to make a completely different car for every buyer. What the automaker is curious to see is whether limited-edition cars, with the credibility of the PMC, can not only find enough buyers in their own right, but also preserve the brand's reputation. . With only enough TLX PMC Edition to be able to assign a little more than one car, on average, to each US dealer, the sedan itself will not be a source of significant profit for each location. If this can lead customers to walk in the door and help return them to a normal TLX or other vehicle, it's a different story.

It remains to be seen how much it will work. This refined TLX – which looks so different, thanks to the frame of the body color grille rather than the usual chrome – will not be on sale before the summer. Considered a special edition of the ordinary car, it's a pretty expensive prospect. However, taken as a path through which the talents of the Performance Manufacturing Center can be appreciated – and about a third of the price that an NSX would cost you back – this perceived value is reversed. As for the calender of the TLX PMC Edition 2020, the magic is at the rendezvous.

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