The Birth of a Legend

It takes a certain amount of chutzpah to name a brand-new model from your brand-new luxury arm “Legend,” but in the mid-1980s, Honda was ready to flex its might. Acura, the company’s luxury brand, led the way for Japan, arriving in the U.S. years before Infiniti and Lexus. The badge was a stylized ‘A’ formed out of a compass, and the marketing materials trumpeted this new brand’s attention to detail. The good news: it wasn’t just marketing.

A Pristine Example

A pristine example of that early Acura heritage is up for sale on Bring a Trailer: a 1987 Legend sedan with the desirable five-speed manual and ultra-low mileage. In 1987, a discerning buyer could have passed up the aging BMW 5-series or slightly stuffy Mercedes-Benz E-Class and picked up this sporty four-door for a lot less money yet plenty of driving satisfaction. If you missed your chance back in the day, the good news is that this Legend is as fresh as can be with just 21,000 miles on the odometer. It’s also bound to be less expensive to drive and maintain than the aforementioned German machinery. Such was the appeal when new, and this Legend’s still got it.

The Driving Experience

But the Acura Legend wasn’t only a pragmatic choice; it offered emotional appeal as well. With a control-arm suspension up front, great seating and visibility, and disc brakes behind 15-inch wheels at all four corners, it was a delight to skim down windy roads. Even better, the Legend could boast Honda’s first production V-6, and it was a little jewel of a thing. Displacing 2.5 liters, with four valves per cylinder and a single overhead cam, it revved to 6500 rpm and made a peak of 151 horsepower. You can get that kind of poke out of a turbo-four Civic these days, but not the smooth power delivery. Best of all, this Legend has the five-speed manual gearbox to make the driving experience just that little bit more special.

A Timeless Appeal

In two-tone gray on the outside with a chocolate-brown interior, it’s far more grown-up-looking than the Integra but should be wonderfully engaging to drive. Given that low mileage, that’s exactly what you should do with it. Acura no longer gives its cars proper names, preferring instead the usual luxury-brand alphabet soup of letters. Decades after its debut, it looks like Acura was right in the first place. Its first luxury sedan turned out to be a Legend after all. Don’t miss out on this great example of the marque. The auction ends on September 10.