The Acura Legend, sold as the Honda Legend outside the U.S., Canada, and parts of China, was a luxury vehicle sold from 1986 to 1995 as both a sedan and coupe. It was the first flagship sedan sold under the Acura nameplate, until being renamed in 1996 as the Acura 3.5RL. The 3.5RL was North American version of the (KA9) series Honda Legend. In Japan, the Legend was only offered at Honda Clio dealerships.
The opportunity for Japanese manufacturers to export more expensive models had arisen with the 1980s voluntary export restraints, negotiated by the Japanese government and U.S. trade representatives, restricting mainstream car sales. When the Legend made its appearance into the market, rival companies in Europe, Japan and North America took notice, and quickly introduced or revised current products that could be compared to it. Toyota began development in 1983 with the F1 project, the code name for a secret flagship sedan effort that became the Lexus LS, Nissan updated their premium flagship the President initially introduced in 1966, and in 1988 Lincoln took a new approach to the venerable Continental offering for the first time a front wheel drive sedan with a V6 engine. General Motors introduced the GM H platform (FWD), Audi took a fresh approach to the 100 and in 1994 introduced the A6, and BMW introduced the BMW 5 Series (E34) in 1988.
When the Legend was introduced, Honda's newly established luxury car division just for the Legend was called Acura, using the advertising slogan "Precision Crafted Performance", and the Legend was offered with one factory installed option, the choice of transmission used, and one trim level. In the 1986 sales brochure, the Legend's full name used was "Legend Touring Sedan". The vehicle was virtually identical in luxury content to the Japanese market V6Zi, but was identical in size and the longer overall length of the top level V6Xi to comply with United States crash standards, using the larger 2.5 V6 engine. The Technics supplied 80W four speaker cassette tape stereo offered four user programmable equalizer settings, and was equipped with a dual diversity antenna, meaning it had a conventional extendable power antenna and an embedded antenna in the front window. One of the novelty items was a simple volume control rocker switch and a pre-set radio station channel selector installed on the instrument binnacle within reach of the right hand; the opposite side of the instrument binnacle had a button to open, tilt or close the standard equipped glass moonroof with sun shade.
Second generation units became available October 24, 1990, now using a 200 hp (150 kW) SOHC (C32A) engine mated to either a standard 5-speed manual or an optional 4-speed automatic. The second generation Legend was a larger, more streamlined-looking car (drag coefficients were actually higher at 0.34 for sedans and 0.32 for coupes). The Legend offered a host of features seen on luxury cars of today including speed-sensitive steering, hands-free telephone, automatic climate control, heated leather seats, heated mirrors, 4-wheel ABS disc brakes, seat belt pretensioners and soft-close vacuum-operated doors (coupes only). The rear end appearance of the sedan was adopted from the first generation Legend coupe, as the first generation sedans appearance was very similar to the first generation Subaru Legacy, and Honda also wanted to visually align the appearance of both the Legend coupe and sedan to the Acura NSX. The segment the Legend originally filled was now being served by the Acura Vigor which allowed the Legend to position itself more towards the rear drive Lexus LS and the Infiniti Q45 sedans. Honda decided not to upgrade the size of the engine to a V8 because it would have upstaged the Acura NSX which has a V6 that introduced Honda's VTEC technology.
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