{"id":37702,"date":"2022-12-07T00:03:56","date_gmt":"2022-12-07T05:03:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=37702"},"modified":"2022-12-07T00:03:56","modified_gmt":"2022-12-07T05:03:56","slug":"junkyard-gem-2001-acura-mdx","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=37702","title":{"rendered":"Junkyard Gem: 2001 Acura MDX"},"content":{"rendered":"

The point of the Junkyard Gems series<\/a> is to share automotive history<\/em><\/a>, and the period of the middle 1990s through early 2000s is a very interesting one for U.S.-market new vehicles<\/a>. The SUV revolution went into high gear with the introduction of the 1991 Ford Explorer<\/a> and 1993 Jeep Grand Cherokee<\/a>, and sales of sedans, hatchbacks, and minivans<\/a> began their steady decline. The Detroit companies were in good shape to cash in on the commuter-truck craze, with plenty of additional models ready for a quick slathering of luxury features. Toyota<\/a>, Mitsubishi<\/a>, Nissan<\/a>, and Isuzu<\/a> were ready as well \u2026 but Honda<\/a> was completely unprepared for the Next Big Thing at that point. With American sales absolutely critical to Honda (which has never held much market share for four-wheeled vehicles in its home country), a deal was made to rebadge the Isuzu Trooper as the Acura SLX<\/a> and the Isuzu Rodeo as the Honda Passport<\/a> while an all-Honda big SUV could be developed. That SUV was the Acura MDX<\/a>, which debuted for the 2001 model year<\/a>. Here’s one of those first-year MDXs<\/a>, a huge turning point in Honda history, found in a Denver-area self-service boneyard<\/a> recently.<\/p>\n

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Oh, sure, Honda began selling the CR-V<\/a> over here in 1997 and so wasn’t completely<\/em> out of the SUV game during the 1990s, but that little Civic-based machine was never going to lure away many Explorer<\/a> or even Montero<\/a> shoppers. The MDX was a proper three-row crossover SUV<\/a>, despite being based on the same platform as the not-so-imposing Accord<\/a>, and a Honda-badged version (the Pilot<\/a>) followed two years later.<\/p>\n

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Here’s that third row, which looks quite cramped, but so what? MDX sales started out respectable and stayed that way<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Every 2001-2013 MDX ever sold here came with a VTEC-equipped V6, automatic transmission, and all-wheel-drive (some later MDXs could be bought with front-wheel-drive). This engine is a 3.5-liter DOHC plant rated at 240 horsepower and 245 pound-feet, decent enough for a truck that tipped the scales at well beyond two tons.<\/p>\n

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The MSRP on this truck was $34,370, which amounts to around $58,260 in inflation-adjusted 2022 dollars. The base ’01 Ford Explorer<\/a> started at just $25,210, but the swankified Eddie Bauer Edition was better-suited to the Acura-shopper demographic and listed at $32,025. You could buy a new Montero XLS<\/a> and do some serious off-roading for $31,397 that year, but it had warlord-grade ride<\/a> to go with its warlord-grade abilities in the bund\u00f3ks<\/a>. The most intimidating rival for the MDX, from Honda’s point of view, must have been the Lexus RX 300<\/a> and its $33,955 starting price tag. Sure, just two rows of seats, but the Lexus<\/a> brand stomped Acura for snob appeal at the time.<\/p>\n

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Below the Interior Color sticker (which tells us that this MDX has “Grace Beige” inside), there is a telltale REBUILT FROM SALVAGE stamp in the door jamb. This truck led a long and sometimes difficult life.<\/p>\n\n

Taking the SUV to a place it’s never been before.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The point of the Junkyard Gems series is to share automotive history, and the period of the middle 1990s through early 2000s is a very interesting one for U.S.-market new vehicles. The SUV revolution went into high gear with the introduction of the 1991 Ford Explorer and 1993 Jeep Grand Cherokee, and sales of sedans, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37703,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-design-concepts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37702\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/37703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}