While motoring in the city, the drive in the ZDX is close to effortless. The steering, throttle, and braking effort levels are tuned such that the ZDX feels light and responsive to your inputs, and it indeed feels quite car-like. Over smooth surfaces, the ZDX glides quietly and serenely, with no stray body movements. Over imperfect road surfaces, the ZDX behaves much like you'd expect a luxury sports coupe to behave - you can sense that there is stuff happening underneath, but for the most part the suspension does a good job sorting things out. The "Comfort" setting on the IDS is perfect for the city environment.

Out on the open road, my personal tastes dictate a switch of the IDS dial to the "Sport" setting. At medium and higher speeds, the "Comfort" mode permits more chassis movement than I like; with the "Sport" setting, the ride is slightly harsher, but the upside is that the chassis settles very quickly after encountering a disturbance. During our driving route, I switched the IDS back and forth between "Comfort" and "Sport" a few times in an effort to gauge the difference in the steering feel between the two modes, but I didn't really notice much of a difference at all. Overall I would rate the overall steering feel as satisfactory. It's plenty accurate, but feedback is a little bit lacking and for a "sports coupe", I always prefer a quicker ratio than the ZDX's SUV-like 17.0:1 (17.6:1 on the Advance). The good news is that the ZDX uses an "old fashioned" hydraulic assist mechanism, so it doesn't suffer from the synthetic "digital" feel that plagues the '09-up TL.

Thrust
We've already sampled the ZDX's powertrain in the 2010 MDX. Both vehicles feature Acura's 300hp 3.7L SOHC VTEC V6 and their completely new 6-speed automatic transmission with sport mode, rev-matched downshifts, and steering-wheel mounted paddle shifters. My MDX and ZDX drives were separated by roughly a month, but my very first impression of the ZDX was that I thought it felt noticeably more responsive than the MDX. As the day wore on and I thought back to my (brief) experience in the 2010 MDX, my opinion on that changed a little bit. From 0-60, the ZDX is probably not as quick as a 2010 TSX V6 (6.1 seconds), but I'm pretty sure it's not too far behind. From 0-30, it feels almost like it would be a dead heat. The 6AT and its tighter gearing really helps the 3.7L V6 make the most of its torque curve. The 6AT features Acura's SportShift interface, which allows you to select between fully automatic operation ("D"), semi-automatic operation (temporary manual control of upshifts and downshifts via the paddles in "D" mode), and fully "manual" operation (S). As this is exactly the same unit that's found in the 2010 MDX, the ZDX's transmission supports double downshifts (6-4, 5-3, 4-2, etc..). The paddle shifter responsiveness is essentially the same as previous Acuras, which means it's reasonably responsive but not hair trigger quick. Since the plastic paddle switches are mounted on the steering wheel, they are not particularly useful for really twisty roads, simply because you lose track of them as the wheel is spinning around. They are useful when setting up for a pass or for additional engine braking on a steep downhill.

Heavy throttle application is accentuated by an intake note that has been purposely tuned to be extra throaty at high rpms. This is notable because at a steady cruise, the ZDX is very quiet; Acura has gone to great lengths to deaden the chassis and body for sound transmission. Since the ZDX is normally so quiet, the pronounced intake note may very well startle an unsuspecting driver the first few times he or she plants their right foot into the high quality carpet. It also runs the risk of annoying some drivers. This risk would be all but eliminated if the J37 could match the spine-tingling NSX-like intake sound of the older TL's 3.2L (J32) version of this engine, but unfortunately it falls short of that mark. Fortunately, in the majority of driving circumstances the engine sounds fall well in line with the luxury/premium character of the ZDX.

Moves
I didn't really get the chance to give the ZDX a good workout, but I did pitch it through a handful of corners. The first thing I noticed was that the ZDX exhibits surprisingly little body roll. The roll center seems to fall somewhere below the Earth's surface. You can seriously feel the ZDX's immense width working in your favor. On the flip side, this immense width can prove to be cumbersome on tight and twisty two lane roads. Placing the ZDX between the shoulder and the center line on a really tight, curvy road requires some effort until you fully familiarize yourself with the ZDX's dimensions. Something else I noticed was that even with the ZDX's extremely quiet all-season radials, lateral grip felt surprisingly good for a big coupe. (Side note: This is actually a trend I've started noticing with a lot of Honda and Acura products - their all-season tires have stepped up their grip levels substantially.) The roads we were on didn't provide the opportunity to really stress the chassis and get a good feel for the ZDX's overall balance, but at our 6 to 7/10ths maximum pace I didn't sense any alarming tendencies towards understeer. The ZDX's weight balance (58/42, f/r) isn't quite as optimal as the MDX's (56/44), but the difference wasn't too noticeable under the driving circumstances I encountered.

Since the ZDX uses the MDX's superb braking hardware, I fully expect the ZDX's braking performance to match or exceed that of the MDX. During my limited time with the ZDX, the brakes provided good feel and strong stopping power. Fade performance should be excellent but we won't know for sure until we are able to try them in a more stressed environment.

Visibility
As you might expect, rearward visibility in the ZDX is compromised by its shape. Fortunately the rear view mirrors are good-sized and if you take care to properly adjust all three of them, driving in traffic is not a problem. The hatch has a CRX-like secondary lower window which helps mitigate the "gunslit" view that the nearly horizontal hatch glass would normally provide, but the benefit is probably more psychological than anything. The blind spot information system that's included in the "Advance" package may prove to be useful for some, but the way they are positioned means you have to check the exterior mirrors anyhow. In midtown traffic, they were flashing like a pinball machine, and I mostly didn't pay attention to them. Their real benefit is out on the open road, where they may reveal a small vehicle or motorcycle that's cruising in your blind spot. The backup camera on navi-equipped models has a fisheye lens and in addition to the 175-degree wide angle "fisheye view", the system uses software to simulate 2 additional perspectives: a "standard" 130-degree wide rear view and a simulated "top down" view. The fisheye wide angle view is intended to aid in seeing crossing traffic while backing out of a tight parking spot. The top down view helps when backing the ZDX up close to a wall, pole, another vehicle, or for lining up a hitch. Yellow marker guidelines are overlaid in each view to aid in judging distances and alignment. A pair of solid lines projecting rearward approximates the ZDX's width with respect to the field of view, while three parallel solid lines mark off distances of 1m, 2m, and 3m from the rear of the vehicle. A single dashed line on the overlay map shows the minimum clearance distance which permits the operation of the power-operated tailgate.

Efficiency
The ZDX is rated 16/23/19 mpg city/highway/combined on the EPA test cycle and based upon my limited time with the vehicle, it seems like matching or surpassing these numbers shouldn't be a problem for the average driver. Going by the trip computer, our drive started out in the 16-17mpg range in the stop-and-go flow of mid-morning traffic. It steadily increased as the traffic loosened up, eventually reaching an average of 22mpg. Considering the number of times I romped on the throttle, that's not too bad for a 300hp, 4400lb AWD coupe. The long legs afforded by the top gear in the 6AT kept the revs down nicely at freeway speeds (just under 2000rpm at 70mph). Based upon this brief experience it wouldn't surprise me to hear stories of extended freeway runs in the ZDX netting averages in the 24 or even 25mpg range. The wildcard here is the accuracy of the trip computer; based upon past experience with several MDXs, the actual figures may end up being lower than what's reported by the trip computer. The trip computer on one 2008 MDX I tested consistently reported 10-15% better fuel economy than what was really delivered.

Conclusions
Acura has come up with an interesting twist on the idea of a "4 door sports coupe". They have targeted a very specific market with the ZDX, blending performance, style, and utility into a unconventional package. Pricing has yet to be finalized, but the ZDX will slot in between the MDX (~$42000) and RL (~$47500). With that in mind, that puts the base price of the ZDX at around $45000, which is right on par with the Infiniti FX35 and more than $10000 less than a base X6. Last year, Infiniti sold a little more than 12000 FXs in the US and BMW shifted over 4500 X6s. Considering these figures, Acura's hopes of selling 6000 ZDXs certainly seems like a reasonable goal. There's no question that the ZDX has the hardware, features, and the price to be a strong competitor; the key factor to its success will be how the market takes to its styling.