Touge

Nope I haven't seen any 07 RL base pics yet, snap away CL6

ExHack

The back seat was tight, no doubt about it. It amazes me how the TSX, which is a smaller car, has more legroom than the Vigor and almost as much as the Legend.

The G1 TL's didn't grab me, either. They appeared to be very pleasant cars, but much blander than either the Vigor or G2 Legends. When the Legend wore out, I thought about a G1 TL because I could tell a lot or all of the platform had carried over from one or both models, but the car just didn't do it for me like those models did.

Since this thread has caught the attention of the Management ... any chance you guys might add a "Vintage" section for those of us who love the older Acks? I also hang around www.acura-legend.com from time to time, but I haven't found a Vigor forum yet.

neuronbob

I must have forgotten about the previous pic. I appreciate your effort, though, CL6!

phile

Not sure it would show up, but I'd still like to see, please.

CL6

Here are some pictures of an 07 Base RL. The wood on the dash and on the doors feels the same. Anyway:

Ken1997TL

Looks good to me!

Fake wood can be made to look very very convincing. I have no problem with it if tastefully done. I'd rather have the money spent elsewhere.

Rob144

It's hard to tell from the pictures that thats plood. Funny how the RL is such a hard car to photograph (inside and out). It does look a little lighter in color than the real thing. I still think the base model should have had a brushed aluminum look rather than fakey wood. If it looks even remotely real, then having real wood on the next model up is no great shakes.

It is interesting to see the absence of a MAP/Guide button, and the addition of AUX to the Disc button on the dash.

Not to hi-jack the thread, but I'm torn about the lack of an AUX plug in my '06 RL. On the one hand, I like the idea of the AUX plug to play music from my MP3 player. But on the other hand, in the absence of the plug, I just burn an MP3/WMA CD and I have about 700MB of music with no wires, remotes, batteries, chargers, or any of that.

I can't wait to see an '07 RL in the flesh, though. Thanks for the picture!

Rob144

CL6

The cars look the same. There is an AUX input in the center console but that's about it. What I find most interesting is that there are still voice commands but it's for Temp and Stereo.

The main way to tell about the plood is to tap on it with your ring vs. the real wood you can tell the difference.

Mike_TX

I agree that new RL plood looks darn good, too. But then I'm impressed with the way the door pieces in my '06 look so much like the dash pieces. Perfect match, which for real wood is hard.

The first car I had with real wood on the dash was a '67 Pontiac GTO. The wood was about 1/8" thick (that was before they started using veneers) and it was glued directly onto the dash. It took only about 6-8 months for the wood to first split, then slowly warp and curl in places. It basically looked like pukey after 2 years. Pontiac replaced some of the pieces once, but after that I gave up.

After that, GM mostly used something that looked like that peel-n-stick stuff like the shelf liner your mother used to use in the kitchen.

So I like veneers fine. They have the cache of being real wood, without the drawbacks. And after all, it's just a decoration for the dashboard, not a test of your manhood.
.
.

jftjr

So true. My Dad had an '85 Buick Park Avenue Ultra, and the plastic trim in that car was beyond cheap. It looked like the vinyl stick-on stuff that cheap office furniture uses.... no, actually, it didn't even look THAT good. It was like a bad picture of a poor drawing of some bad looking wood.....

Best wood I ever had in a car was the Nardi steering wheel on my '77 Alfa Spider.... a gorgeous hoop of mahogany with three aluminum spokes...it was thick, perfectly lacquered, and mounted entirely too far away.... Of course, in a crash, it would have split into tiny splinters and impaled me in a dozen places (as the car had no shoulder belts!) but hey, it was art, ya know?

Rob144

I wasn't sure quite where you were going with that!

It sure seems like "wood-look" trim is working its way into all sorts of cars. Car and Driver's recent econo-sedan road test even commented how the latest Corolla had such incredibly convincing fake wood.

I remember the days of sadly peeling "press-on" wood from the 70's. In fact, my bedroom when I was a kid had gray-hued wood-veneer-look-vinyl wallpaper that looked better than the stuff you'd find on the dashboard of your mid-70s luxury liner.

The earlier comments reminded me of the Vigor. That was a fine use and placement for the wood trim. Honda definitely had many ideas ahead of its time (and continues to do so).

Rob144

jftjr

Well, I have a story about THAT, too, but that's for an entirely different Forum....

"Dear Penthouse, I never thought I'd be writing this letter...."

neuronbob

That plood looks pretty darn convincing to me. I'd be satisfied with that in my RL.

phile

Interesting, I see swirls in the plood...IIRC the authentic curly maple doesn't have the swirls. Is the plood a completely different wood pattern?

CL6

I'm not sure what the Plood 5000 super computer came up with.


Is the plood a completely different wood pattern?

pimpin-tl

I seriously doubt this email/post is real since they would never say that. You just
typed it up. The RL wood is very real.

CL6

That email sounds real... however if you read it there is nothing saying that Acura won't disclose if it's real... or not.

Too much space has been expended on this topic I think. But, having seen the plood, I can tell you that it looks real (if a little shiny) but doesn't feel real.

UW RL

http://www.honda.co.jp/LEGEND/interior/index.html

scroll to the middle of the page and use some online translator to translate that to English. You will see that it is real wood that they use.

End of discussion.....

phile

It looks to be some sort of hybrid wood LOL

The real wood (only the bands, no swirls):


Teh fake (look closely, little swirls mixed in with the bands):

Mike_TX

I have to agree this subject has been worked to death.

HOWEVER - The issue of bands and swirls is as easy as how the wood is cut. True quarter-sawn wood of most kinds will have straight grain (the bands referred to above), while wood cut closer to half-sawn will have more of the "swirls". Only so much wood can be cut quarter-sawn, after which the remaining part of the tree trunk has to be cut at a different angle and the grain pattern will change accordingly.

In addition, let's keep in mind this is curly maple ... the curly part refers to the so-called "swirls" and undulations in the wood grain. Last but not least, wood is a natural material, so it will vary from piece to piece.

The point is that some of the real wood will look more like the plood shown above and some will look more like the real wood shown above. The plood is just a representation of everything you might find in a sampling of real wood.

Having said all that, how do you explain the obvious swirls in the dash of my '06 RL?



Now that I've analyzed that to death, it may be time to close this thread.

neuronbob

Damn I wish we had a dead horse smiley. I think I'll appeal to our admins for one because if ever a topic needed one, it's this one.