LEGENDARY; Acura has found its way back to the big game with the new RL.(Auto File)

The Acura RL spent its first nine years riding the luxury car bench, a sort of backup player to an all-Mercedes, BMW, Audi, Lexus-even Jaguar-starting lineup. The RL never had enough power or panache to compete with the heavy hitters, plagued as it was with a stubborn adherence to V6-only power and an ultraconservative styling ethos, and the car's sales reflected its second-class status.

The game has changed with this latest RL, and even if the car yet relies on a V6 for power, at least it's a meaty V6, with a peak 300 hp at 6200 rpm and 260 lb-ft of torque out of 3.5 liters of all-aluminum VTEC engineering. Mated to a five-speed automatic, all that grunt finds its way to the ground in quick order, with shifts popping off as rapidly as you can ask for them, either with your right foot, the center console-mounted shift lever or steering wheel-mounted paddles.

The real treat with the new RL, however, has to be its standard all-wheel-drive system, what Acura calls Super Handling All-Wheel Drive, which not only transfers power between the axles fore and aft, but also between the rear wheels. This aids in hard cornering by closing the speed differential between the outside and inside rear wheels.

We found out just how nicely this all-wheel-drive system works at the track, where the RL tackled our tight, 490-foot slalom course with ease, requiring but a squirt of the gas pedal at each cone's apex to keep the car snaking through as smoothly as possible. Turn-in felt particularly sharp, and the RL's final 44.1-mph speed compares closely with the BMW 745i's 44.2 mph and bests the Lexus LS 430's 42.0 mph.

When pushed particularly hard, however, the RL would push back, especially on the skidpad where we found the car preferred a front-end grinding course around the 200- foot circle en route to a none-too-shabby 0.84 gs of lateral acceleration. Super Handling, indeed.

During real-world driving, the RL handles as placidly as we might have expected, with just about every road imperfection absorbed with-out complaint. We especially enjoyed how quietly the RL rides, with ...