Acura RSX Type-S

It's tricky updating a car that's fine as is. A car we've called "a scalpel for carving up the road" and "a jewel...uncorrupted by froufrou" ["Four Wedges & a Bubble," C/D, May 2002]. A car that was the decisive winner in the wedges-and-bubble battle, and also a 10Best choice in 2002 and 2003.

Clearly, the RSX team had something that wasn't broken. But with three years in its logbook, the RSX wasn't new anymore. And since new is the essence of the car biz, they fixed it anyway, a midterm update that can't be called a major makeover but is too comprehensive to be called a mere freshening. Sure, it includes the kind of minor tweaks common to most updates—the industry equivalent of plastic surgery, nips and tucks aimed at preserving youth. Examples: A rear wing has sprouted from the decklid of the Type-S model, the front fascia has been honed to a sharper edge, the headlights are new, the visible portions of the front and rear underbody are wider, there are new side sills, and the static ride height has been dropped 0.3 inch—all of which makes the car look lower, wider, and more aggressive.

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