Honda Legend (2006-) Review

Overview

• Next: Reliability and Quality

We were amazed when we drove Honda's new Legend last October at the company's sinuous and deliberately bumpy test track at Takasu, in Japan's northerly island of Hokkaido. Amazed because this pillowy, floaty, hefty saloon - it was in Japanese suspension specification - gripped and steered and drifted and pointed like a Subaru Impreza Turbo, despite that loose, squashy ride. The split personality was close to surreal.

The reason was the Legend's technical centrepiece, Super Handling All-Wheel Drive or SH-AWD for short. This can divert up to 70% of the engine's torque to the front or rear axles as needed (which is not unusual) and can actively divert up to all of that 70% to the outside rear wheel (which is). It's rather like the e-diff in the Ferrari F430, in that it can control tail slithers without slowing you down. The system also 'loads up' the rear axle by making it able to run slightly faster than the front one, which makes the Legend feel like a driver-pleasing rear-wheel drive car in corners up to the point when rear-wheel drive becomes a liability. Then SH-AWD does its other stuff and helps keep the Honda pointing in the right direction.

Then there's the Lane-Keeping Assist System already seen in the Accord, which uses information from a camera to apply gentle steering inputs that keep you between traffic-lane markings; and the Collision-Mitigating Brake System, which senses if a frontal crash is imminent and brakes the Legend automatically at up to 0.6g while tensioning the seatbelts. We've seen other systems that use the brakes to slow you down as you come up behind a slower vehicle and keep you at a pre-set distance (active cruise control) and yet others that apply maximum-effort braking, once you've started the process with your own foot, if there's an obstacle ahead - but this is the first time such strong automatic braking has been offered in the UK.

Two other niceties are the pop-up bonnet, similar to the Citroen C6's system and designed to protect pedestrians foolish enough to walk into the Legend, and the noise-reducing electronics built into the Bose stereo. This picks up cabin sounds and re-emits them out of phase, thus at least partially cancelling the source sound.

But the night-vision system offered in Japan - designed to recognise wandering pedestrians and rather quaintly outline them in white - isn't yet ready for Europe; and the LKAS and CMBS systems form a £2,750 option pack.

The Legend is still quite a technical showcase, though, and it's this - plus the likely rarity with just 400 UK sales expected a year - that Honda cites as the reason why the Legend will appeal to 'respected individualists' rather than 'corporatist conformers'.

The latter will work for a company and drive an obvious German rival (BMW 5-Series, Mercedes E-Class, Audi A6), whereas the Legend is aimed at people who run a smaller business rather than work for a large one. Lexus and Citroen have similar hopes for the GS and the C6, and this time Honda thinks the Legend is interesting enough to be a contender. The previous ones certainly weren't.

Power still comes from a V6 engine with VTEC variable valve timing, but now it's mounted transversely, has a 3,471cc capacity and exerts up to 295bhp. It drives through a five-speed automatic transmission with manual paddle-shifters on the steering wheel. That transverse mounting allows the new Legend to be 65mm shorter than the last one despite its roomier cabin, a welcome result in a world of ever-larger cars.

Pricing is right in high-end exec territory, starting at £36,250. Sales start in September and there's just one, lavish trim level called, with a spectacular lack of imagination, EX.

For Europe, the suspension has been made much firmer to suit what Honda perceives as our tastes. That should fix the dynamic schizophrenia. Good idea? Read on.