Some of you may not realize this, but there is a giant portion of the US driving population that has little or no experience driving in inclement weather. I'm certain that those of you reading this in Duluth, Minnesota, may chuckle when reading this, but it's true. Take the native driving population of the sunbelt, and dump them in the upper Midwest in January, and the ensuing madness will be more horrifying than anything Stephen King could think up.
I mention this because I am a native of the sun belt; graduate of Barry M. Goldwater High School in Phoenix, Arizona, and alumnus of Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona. Except for a few ski trips in college, I had never driven in snow until moving to Denver, Colorado, this past year. Thus, my winter driving experience consisted of three or four mild storms between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Until the week of January 8th, that is. On January 8th, I flew to Detroit to attend the auto show with our managing editor, Chris Wardlaw. Wardlaw is a Michigan native who grew up outside of Detroit, and for whom driving through a blizzard is a day of fun and excitement. While in Detroit, we managed to get our hands on a Lexus ES300 and Acura 3.2TL for a comparison test. Little did I know that I would be driving these wonderful luxury cars at the Wardlaw School of Ice Driving.
The week started off innocently enough. We had a good time at the auto show, the weather was holding up, and we were staying with Wardlaw's family, instead of in some faceless Holiday Inn, which had the added benefit of keeping us out of trouble. For the most part, anyhow. Wardlaw's family had moved after he got out of college, and they now live in a small town in southeastern Michigan called Memphis. Memphis is filled with quaint, gingerbread Victorians, and other turn-of-the-century homes, but overall there isn't much to do there. Wardlaw and I, however, were able to find a drinking establishment within stumbling distance of his mother's home that went by the name Hic-A-Billies. (I am not making this up!) As far as I could tell, Hick-A-Billies is a bar where country-western singers go when they have been banned from singing in the western part of the country. We sat at the tattered Hic-A-Billies bar for about two hours, trying to converse over the din emanating from the stage (Just how loud does a band have to play when there are only six people in a bar, anyway?), watching snatches of Monty Python's The Holy Grail, which was inexplicably playing on one of the bar's televisions, and laughing at the thought of what our wives would say if they saw us there. After finally being smoked out of Hick-A-Billies (there was one guy there who was actually smoking two cigarettes at once), we crawled back to Wardlaw's family home, and proceeded to play his little brother's Sony Playstation until three in the morning. NOTE: playing Sony Playstation's Twisted Metal is highly addictive and should never be attempted while under the influence of alcohol. The hilarity of repeatedly flipping over a machine gun-equipped hearse while trying to blow up a cannon-equipped ice cream truck is severe enough that the resulting bellows of drunken laughter will wake up the entire household. (I'm not certain, but I think I almost saw my managing editor get grounded.)
It was after this restful night's sleep that I was to embark on the journey of my life. We set out for the small town of Owosso in the central part of Michigan at about eleven in the morning to visit Chris's father and grandfather. We hadn't checked the weather before departing, but we heard that there might be some light snowfall throughout the day. No big deal, I had driven in light snowfall before. I started off in the Lexus and had about three hundred miles to get acquainted with this new-for-1997 model's interior ergonomics and handling characteristics. The first thing that I noticed about the ES300 was that the seats were pretty flat; offering little thigh and lateral support. The gauges in the ES300 are nicely positioned, however, and the climate controls are a breeze to operate. Our ES300 came equipped with an in-dash CD changer that I was looking forward to stocking with my favorite discs. Unfortunately, loading CDs into its flimsy case was such a chore that I ended up listening to the same six CDs every time I drove the car. An odd thing that Wardlaw noticed while driving the ES300 at night is that the gauge lighting doesn't match the illumination for the secondary controls, rendering the interior glarry. There were a few uncharacteristic workmanship flaws in the ES300 as well. Despite having only a few thousand miles on the odometer, the parking brake pedal's rubber boot had come off. Also, the latching fuel door refused to latch after about three days into our test. Other than these grievances, the ES300 was marvelous. The front and rear cup holders each accommodate a Big Gulp-sized container, the glove box had ample room despite housing a CD changer, the rear seats were pretty comfortable, and the interior materials were first-rate. What really surprised us about this car, though, was the driving experience.
The ES300's new sheetmetal should have been a giveaway. The car looks low-slung and downright racy when parked next to its competitors from the US and Japan. This image isn't diminished when behind the wheel. Although the ES300's engine is a carryover from the previous generation, Lexus engineers have been able to eke out some additional power by rerouting the exhaust flow at low engine speeds, thus allowing the engine to breathe easier. The result is 200-horsepower and 214 ft./lb. of torque, each of which occurs across a very level powerband. For the driver this means swift acceleration, and excellent mid-range power. Our Lexus came equipped with a variable-rate shock absorber damping system that allowed us to dial in the amount of shock absorber stiffness we wanted. Dial in the soft setting for cruising Michigan's rutted, pock-marked highways, dial in the medium setting for regular around-town driving, and dial in the firm setting for hauling-ass on twisty two-laners in the back country. We liked this gizmo, but didn't think it was necessary. The medium setting was appropriate for most driving conditions, and the firm setting caused the car to hobby-horse erratically on Michigan's uneven Interstates. The ES300's steering was fairly linear, but there was a slight on-center dead spot that made it difficult to keep the vehicle on course on some roads. All ES300s are equipped with anti-lock brakes which work extremely well. When the anti-lock system starts cycling on, however, it is not as transparent as we would like; it produced a great deal of brake pedal throb and an audible shudder, as I discovered when sliding across an off-ramp on I-96.
Somewhere in the-middle-of-nowhere Michigan, the light snowfall that we had heard about turned into a raging blizzard. Traffic on the interstate slowed to about 30 mph, and all I could do was follow Wardlaw and the telltale Acura tail lamps. (I remember becoming oddly religious along this stretch of freeway, and I made up my mind to attend church sometime when I got back to Denver.) Keeping up with Wardlaw was easy because of the Lexus's power advantage, but I must say that I was hesitant to get too close because this was the worst weather I had ever seen in my life. Ice-covered roads, howling wind, and a white-out that lasted for nearly 20 minutes were just a few of the pleasures that this Sun Devil happened to encounter. We finally made it to civilization, the thriving city of Owosso, and decided to grab a bite to eat and see if the storm would abate. We had an amazingly good, and inexpensive, meal at a local eatery called Greg and Lou's. (We highly recommend the Philly cheese steak and pecan pie.) It was at Greg and Lou's that we learned from the locals that we had been driving through one of the worst blizzards in recent memory. "Great," I thought, "it's a wonder that I made it this far alive."
I assumed that we would spend the night in Owosso, since no one in their right mind would suggest driving the 150 miles or so back to Memphis in weather that the locals were describing as really, really bad. Wardlaw, however, had different plans. As a native of Michigan who regularly recounts his collegiate feat of driving a Ford Fiesta with one windshield wiper through a blizzard from Detroit to Kalamazoo, he was undaunted. Not wanting to look like the wimp I really am, I put on my war face (you know, like the ones they practiced in the Full Metal Jacket ) and said something ridiculous like, "This weather doesn't bother me, I just wanted to make sure that you were OK to drive." All the while my brain was screaming, "WE'RE GOING TO DIE!"
Thus we left the warmth and comfort of Owosso, and headed into the cold, freezing night. This time I was in the Acura, following the rapidly disappearing tail lamps of Wardlaw's ES300. I realized immediately that the 3.2TL doesn't have the same sort of power as its ES300 counterpart. While no slouch in the acceleration department, the Acura just couldn't keep up with the Lexus when Wardlaw was really dropping the hammer. I decided that it was a better strategy for me to stay alive than to try and keep up with Christian "The Iceman Cometh" Wardlaw, and settled into a safe speed and tried to get comfortable in the car that my life would be depending on for the next three hours or so.
The Acura 3.2TL has really comfortable seats. The seats are, in fact, as comfortable as anything I've experienced this year. They have wonderful leg and back support and aren't nearly as flat-feeling as the Lexus. Another plus is their impressive lateral support, noticed after sliding sideways across a particularly slick parking lot. Wardlaw and I had a mighty debate over which car had better stereo and climate control ergonomics. He was won over by the Lexus and thought that their systems were more intuitive and easy-to-read. My vote was cast in favor of the Acura because it had fewer buttons to fiddle with and a very straightforward operation. Some of the Acura's controls, however, made little sense to either of us. The power door lock and window controls were not illuminated in the 3.2TL (they were in the Lexus), the cruise control switch was awkwardly placed on the center console, and the sunroof didn't have a one-step open feature; something that we've come to expect in the crowded near-luxury segment.
We were, however, pleased with the presence of the 3.2TL's center console-mounted emergency brake, even though it completely covered the console-mounted seat heater buttons. It added a feeling of sportiness to this otherwise stolid car and proved its fun-factor on more than one icy turn. We were also impressed with the Acura's suspension, which was much more composed than the gizmo-laden setup found on the Lexus. Although the Acura's rear suspension seemed noisier than it should (filling the rear passenger's ears with an annoying hum), it exhibited little thump and was forgiving of the worst roads we could throw at it. As Wardlaw pointed out, the Acura's suspension may not be the one you want for storming through a twisty canyon, but it does a great job of keeping the 3.2TL planted in most driving situations. The attributes that we liked most about the Acura were its great steering feel and solid braking. Despite traversing some pretty awful roads, the Acura's steering never felt sloppy or unresponsive. The brakes, too, were exceptional, providing excellent stopping with a minimum of fanfare; they were easy to modulate even when the ABS was engaged.
As I went slipping and sliding along Interstate 69, I tried to remember all of the things that I had ever heard about driving in inclement weather. Lesson number one from the Wardlaw School of Ice Driving, don't touch the brakes if you are in a slide, was the hardest rule for me to master. As I slithered sideways along I-69 through Flint it was truly a battle for me to keep from hitting the brakes when the back end of the 3.2TL started coming around. Fortunately, my resolve to stay alive was enough to keep me from stabbing at the brake pedal and whirling into the Buick factory.
When we finally made it back to Memphis I breathed a sigh of relief, and thanked whatever supernatural force had kept me from spinning off of the road into oblivion. Safely indoors, drinking a cold one (a beer that I never thought I would live to taste), Wardlaw told me that I had earned my Michigan winter driver's license. Let me tell you, a kid from the desert of Arizona couldn't have been more proud.
The weather didn't really improve for the duration of our trip, but I didn't feel as threatened by it as I had that first, harrowing day. I realized that as long as I drove with some intelligence, was aware of the cars around me, and didn't forget that I was basically skating the car rather than driving it, that winter driving wasn't so bad. Like Wardlaw says, "it's really a fun challenge."
Weeks later, sitting in the comfort of my Denver home, I realize that it's time to pick a winner of this comparison test. On paper, the Lexus is the victor, offering a surprising degree of comfort and performance in a relatively inexpensive package. We don't hesitate to recommend the Lexus to anyone looking at the BMW 328i. It is not quite as sporty, but it has considerably more room and a feeling of luxury not found in the Teutonic sedan. The Acura, however, should not be discounted. While not as fast as the ES300, the Acura is still pretty quick. More importantly, though, is the 3.2TL's solidity; the car feels as stable as Plymouth Rock under most driving conditions. Also, the 3.2TL has a presence that is missing from the ES300. Its imposing sheetmetal, authoritative exhaust note, and satisfying door-thunk conveys an impression of dignity typically reserved for top-drawer cars like the Lexus LS400 or BMW 7-Series. We wouldn't want to be forced into choosing between these two fantastic cars, but if we were, we would probably go with the Acura.
