Acura Precision concept points to future of brand's design

Acura today revealed the Precision Concept at the 2016 North American International Auto Show in Detroit, calling it a showcase for the brand's "bolder, more distinctive" future direction for its vehicle designs.

The edgy four-door's look proved polarizing, with its creased bodywork wrapped around 22-inch wheels. Design highlights include "jewel constellation" LED headlights with "organically arranged fractal elements," that look great, but appear utterly impractical in terms of production costs; the floating LED taillights seem more realistic in terms of a possible translation onto production models.

We'd suggest getting used to the Precision's "diamond pentagon" grille, which we suspect will dominate the face of future Acura production vehicles.

This is a big car, measuring 5,182 mm (204 in.) tip-to-tail and 2,134 mm (84 in.) wide, giving it a substantially larger footprint than Acura's RLX flagship sedan, but a height measurement of just 1,321 mm (52 in.) masks its size.

The lack of a B-pillar is part of the company's "quantum continuum" design theme, based around seamless transitions from the exterior to an interior built around an angular instrument panel and low-profile rear seats Acura says evoke modern lounge furniture. The driver gets a head-up display, sport steering wheel with paddle shifters and integrated drive mode selectors, and a floating centre digital gauge panel.

A curved centre screen is controlled via a floating (sensing a theme yet?) touch pad on a cantilevered centre stack. The human-machine interface scans each occupant in order to select personalized functions like maps, audio and vehicle performance settings.