Auto News 5

Acura doesn't offer a two-door car right now, and that's probably a good thing. With a rich leather interior and surplus of electronics, the Accord V-6 EX-L we recently spent some time with makes any Acura coupe redundant.

I was pleasantly surprised by the manual Accord coupe. It's a good example of Honda's knack for building vehicles that appeal to the mainstream consumer but still offer a bit of enjoyment for the enthusiast. The light steering is effortless in daily driving but it also provides enough feedback to be rewarding on the curvy stuff. Even with 271 hp, the 3.5-liter V-6 doesn't often overpower the front tires but it's also no slouch. Plus, it sounds great. Start off slow and you'll hear a nice muffled growl; floor it and that faint noise builds into a roar by the time it reaches redline. The six-speed manual and the clutch pedal require more effort than I expect from a Honda -- particularly the heavy clutch -- but it wouldn't stop me from choosing the manual if I were going to buy an Accord coupe.

Giorgetto Giugiaro is the Car Designer of the Century, according to 132 (relatively) young automotive journalists back in 1999. Their grasp of automotive history seems to have been concentrated in their own adult lifetimes, however. Whether GG's influence is greater than Battista "Pinin" Farina's or Harley Earl's is very much open to debate, but there is no question that he is one of the most prolific designers alive. "I have designed cars for every major company but Honda, and one day I will do that," says the Maestro. The merging of his firm Italdesign with Volkswagen may signify an end to his half century of intense activity, but he remains a powerful and highly influential force in automobile design.

Just as it was in 1967, the 2011 Ford Mustang and 2011 Chevrolet Camaro are natural rivals, not only in their design and performance, but also in showroom sales. So we didn't need Ford to tell us that the Camaro is the most cross-shopped vehicle for Mustang buyers. We were surprised, however, when Ford revealed the second most cross-shopped vehicle. We suspected -- as you may -- either the Dodge Challenger, the Hyundai Genesis coupe, or the Nissan 370Z. After the Camaro, though, Ford says shoppers are most likely to compare the Mustang with the Honda Accord coupe. So we gathered the two coupes for head-to-head comparison.