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The Acura TL has a solid stance, tall and lean, with muscular lines. It looks compact and coiled, tensed, ready to move in any direction with quickness, certainty, and precision. The designers say they kept the image of a soccer player in mind as they sketched the latest TL. To our eyes the result looks a little forced, even melodramatic; but a close look at the car's proportions and styling cues gives the design credence.

While maintaining approximately the same wheelbase as the pre-2004 TL, the designers shaved more than three and half inches off the overall length. Yet the latest model is nearly two inches wider, riding on tires spread an inch farther apart in front and an inch and a half farther apart in the rear. The roof is a half-inch taller. And yet the Acura TL claims one of the lowest coefficients of drag (0.29 Cd) in its class.

The strong, chin-like front end is braced by two low-mounted openings feeding cooling air to the engine, the minimalist grille above serving primarily to frame the Acura badge and trademark polished horizontal bar. Squinting headlights wrap around the front fenders, drawing the eye to the character line that begins in the side-marker light just forward of the front door, integrating the perfectly aligned door handles and running the length of the car to terminate in the rear side-marker lights. Molded rocker panels beneath the doors (with a chip-resistant finish) visually widen the car's lower body. Fender flares stretch the body over and wrap snugly around the tires. The tallish greenhouse tapers gracefully inward as it rises from the beltline, giving geometric balance to the rake of the windshield and backlight. The C-pillar, or sail panel, flows smoothly down into the trunk lid, adding substance and solidity to the rear quarters and embellishing the TL's mild, wedge-like profile.

What most other drivers will see of the Acura TL, the back end, looks like, well, a Honda. This isn't necessarily bad, although it looks conservative when compared to the dramatic styling of the rest of the car. The trailing edge of the trunk lid is sharply crested, with a pleasing Kamm-like aero-overhang. Taillights are severely functional. The black surround setting off the rear license plate is a bit loud. But the body sculpturing produces surface planes that generate some exciting shadows, and dual exhausts with squarish tips in matching lower bumper cutouts boost the sporty image, as do tires pushed out to the car's edge.

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The Acura TL has a comfortable cabin with back seats that are roomy and comfortable. Its interior space and dimensions are close enough to those of the BMW 5-Series and the Volvo S60, the two cars Acura expects most buyers to cross-shop.

Interior quality is up to Acura standards. Fit and finish is above average. A nice touch is a grained, matte-finish section on the top of the dash over the instrument cluster that reduces reflective glare off the inside of the windshield on bright, sunny days. A seamless dash masks the presence of the passenger-side front airbag, making for a more elegant and stylish look.

Comfortably bolstered seats brace thighs and shoulders against lateral forces during spirited cornering. Seat bottom cushions could extend a bit more beneath the thighs, but overall the seats are quite supportive without being overly firm. The B-pillars are indented in their forward edges about mid-height to make a little more elbow room for front seat occupants.

Backlit LED gauges look out from inside three pods tucked under a hood shading them from the noon-time sun. They're easy on the eyes, with a blue-around-white motif. A large, round speedometer sits directly in front of the driver and is centered on the steering column, which is also properly centered on the driver's seat. To the left is a slightly smaller, but no less legible tachometer. The right-hand pod contains the fuel and water temperature gauges.

The melding of function with form works extremely well in the Acura TL. Topmost in the center stack is the LCD screen that displays the climate control and audio settings as well as the optional navigation system's visual aids. With the optional navigation system comes a line of PDA-like buttons and cursor controller arrayed beneath the screen. Bracketing the screen are perpendicular rows of large, finger-friendly buttons for setting driver and front passenger climate control preferences; a useful Off switch is provided that instantly shuts everything off. Separating the climate controls from the touch-screen this way makes changing fan speeds or adjusting the temperature easy in the TL. With the navigation system, buyers get what Acura calls 3D Solar Sensing Climate Control. Using time of day and direction of travel, this gadget calculates the sun's position relative to the car to adjust side-to-side interior temperatures to maintain desired settings.

Navigation systems are getting better each year and Acura's is one of the best if not the best. It's easy to program and gives clear and accurate descriptions visibly and audibly. The big display and combination of hard buttons and context-sensitive on-screen menus work very well. Still, you have to call up a menu to change radio stations. We found it took 20 seconds after starting the car before we could perform the electronic version of signing a legal agreement and get a map. We didn't try to use them, but the navigation system can recognize nearly 300 different verbal commands, including adjustments to the stereo and climate control and selection of more than 7 million points of interest (restaurants, lodging, airports, shopping malls, etc.).

Below is the control head for the sound system. Large, round knobs adjust volume and tuning/tone/fade/balance. Right-sized station preselect buttons easily pass the fingernail/winter glove test. Still, to change CD tracks you have to press the Audio button and go to a menu. In terms of technology, the standard stereo redefines the overused term premium. Not content with a multi-speaker, externally power-amplified, DVD/CD/cassette/AM/FM/XM Satellite Radio system, Acura added a new technology known as DVD-Audio 5.1. DVDs recorded with this technology triple the channels in traditional stereo and virtual (electronically synthesized) surround sound systems, from two to six. The hope is to do for digital recordings what Dolby did for analog tapes. This more discrete surround sound is common in recording studio gear and has only recently begun appearing in home entertainment systems. The sound fell short of our expectations, though. Through a couple Steely Dan and Fleetwood Mac numbers provided by Acura and selected by the system's developer, Grammy Award-winning music producer/engineer Elliott Scheiner, the most discernible difference between the 2-channel CD/DVD system and the 6-channel DVD-A 5.1 system was just that, four more channels. The sound was physically more surrounding, but it was no fuller or richer. We're not audio experts, but we recall the dimensional depth Dolby added to analog recordings as being a bigger leap forward.

The moonroof switch is located on the overhead control pod, more intuitive than having it on the dash.

Storage places abound but lack flexibility. Seatback-mounted magazine racks are solid, hinged affairs, for example, as are the front door-mounted map pockets, meaning they'll hold only magazines and maps and maybe a slim, self-guide tour book. The center console is a deep, bi-level affair, with a power point in the lower level and a notch in the upper tray to accommodate a cell phone cord. The armrest on the front center console adjusts fore and aft.

Trunk space is just 12.5 cubic feet, and the opening is somewhat smaller, further limiting the size of parcels it will accept. Ordering the navigation system cuts trunk space to 12.3 cubic feet. The trunk is fully finished, however, with an inside pull down; and the goose-neck hinges are encased to avoid threatening fragile contents of grocery bags.