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2007 Honda Accord EX-L V6 6-Speed MT Road Test

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Rob Rothwell
A Genteel Sports Sedan
A Genteel Sports Sedan

What a difference a clutch makes. The third pedal in Honda's lively Accord transforms it from a well-mannered four-door into a well-bred sports sedan. The opportunity to road test a Honda Accord isn't the Holly Grail of road testing that automotive journalists earnestly seek. Yet I came away from a week behind the wheel of my staid-looking tester with a renewed appreciation for the vehicle that put Honda on the map in the mid-size category. My bone-white example didn't excite me visually; fortunately it did that and more from behind the wheel.

The Accord will impress you more with its manners than its exterior design.

The lines of Honda's latest generation Accord are pleasant enough, if not a tad on the boring side. Its interior architecture is sharp though, adding some much-needed flair to the overall package. Honda produces some of the best switchgear in the mid-market range, along with what may be the best leather-wrapped front perches in any market.

You'll also find decent quality materials flooding the tightly assembled cabin. For all intents and purposes, the Accord's human space is a lesson in proper planning and packaging. From within its spaciousness, many a content motorist has administered this benchmark-setting, polished and refined five-passenger sedan. Until late, administrative duties did not include the management of six forward gears through a short throw stick. Prior to 2007, the exhilaration of shifting through a half dozen cogs in an Accord meant coping with two-doors rather than the much more practical arrangement of four.

The Accord Coupe EX-V6 with its manual six-speed mixer has always been a favorite of mine due to its spirited driving dynamics, not its ability to accommodate passengers. Like leveraging strength from the perfect merger, adding the six-speed stick to the EX-L V6 sedan instills similar driving dynamics into a vehicle better suited to hauling the rest of the family when need be.

This powertrain is smooth and well suited to this vehicle.

My leather-lined EX-L tester was powered by Honda's silk-smooth, 3.0 litre, 24-valve DOHC i-VTEC V6. This long-serving mill effortlessly spins-out 244 horsepower @ 6,250 rpm and 211 foot-pounds of torque @ 5,000 rpm but the real magic behind the performance is the wide range of gearing brought forth by the six-speed manual gearbox now available in the Accord Sedan.
Rob Rothwell
Rob Rothwell
Automotive expert
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