I see your internal Rolodex spinning right now. "EL... EL.... I know there was an Acura CL, the TL, and the RL, but no EL. That's poppycock! Hogwash! Tomfoolery!" Well that's because there wasn't an EL where you live, Mr. and/or Ms. Poppycock. But there was an EL in Canada.
Yes, Canada, home of the brave beaver and land of the free moose. Oddly enough, there are still a few cars the United States doesn't get that are considered Canadian exclusives.
One of those cars was the Acura EL. And I'm sure you all desperately want to know what was so wonderful, so incredibly cromulent that Americans were not deemed worthy of being graced with its presence. The EL is Acura's forbidden fruit, something too good for us poor southern (to Canadians) saps, surely it was hiding all sorts of lovely bells and whistles?
Sure, it was, if you consider leather seats to be a bell and also, maybe a whistle. In dreary, boring reality, the Acura EL wasn't really much more than a slightly more comfy, slightly upgraded Honda Civic. Really, that's about it.
And if that sounds a bit dreary, consider that the EL's eventual successor is a car we actually do get here, the Acura ILX.
And if you don't exactly get heart palpitations over the Acura ILX, that's probably understandable, especially when you consider its tagline is "The Real World is Waiting." Seriously, I just grabbed this from the Acura website:
Yes, what you need is not a car that reminds you of youth, of fun, of power, of comfort, of style, of class. You need a car that reminds you of the "real world." Of your high school guidance counselor, telling you that one day you'll make a fine accountant, and NOTHING ELSE. Oh, what's that? You wanted to be an astronaut?
I'm sorry, Bartholomew, but the "real world" is waiting.
And that brings me back to the Acura EL ad up top. Not only would you be buying an Acura, you'd be attaining balance in your life. Everything would be easier, everything would be steadier, everything would have equal weights on all sides.
You'd be so... so... so... balanced.
If only you bought an Acura EL. Now that's a tagline.