Category: Executive 
Price Range: No data available
Remarkable road-holding and handling from Super Handling All-Wheel Drive system, clever safety technology, well finished and equipped, pleasingly compact for an executive car
Ride is too firm, auto transmission could be smoother, engine lacks the expected pulling power
An interesting and welcome alternative to the default-choice German offerings but spoilt by the drawbacks above. If you're going to be an individualist you'd make more of a statement with a Citroen C6.
Price range £36,250-£39,000. On sale in UK September 2006
The Legend pretty much has it all. The front, side and curtain airbags match the intensity of their deployment to the severity of impact. The front passenger airbag also senses if a child or small passenger is out of position and too close to the airbag, in which case it won't go off.
Naturally, ABS and ESP are standard, and the xenon headlights can swivel by up to 20 degrees to shine round corners. The rear edge of the bonnet also pops up if a sensor in the front bumper detects an impact with an unfortunate pedestrian. The pop-up mechanism is pyrotechnic, so it needs to be replaced after deployment.
Beyond these systems are the adaptive cruise control, the Lane Keeping Assist System (it ceases to work if it detects no hand on the steering wheel, so this isn't a self-steering car& yet) and the Collision Mitigation Braking System. This uses radar signals to determine if a collision is imminent and has three stages. First, a 'brake' command appears in the instrument display and there's a beep; second, the same thing happens again, the seatbelts are lightly tightened and the brakes gently applied; if the driver still doesn't react, the third stage is strong seatbelt tensioning and firm braking of up to 0.6g, but it's still up to the driver to bring the Legend to a complete stop. The system, like LKAS, is designed to help rather than to take over.
Unsurprisingly, considering the comprehensive safety kit on offer the big Honda achieves an impressive five-star rating for adult occupant safety in the Euro NCAP crash tests, with an excellent four stars for child protection and three (out of four) for a pedestrian impact.
