| A Week at the Wheel | Cambs, England | Honda Legend 3.5 SE AWD |

Inside & Out:

Always a weakness in Japanese luxury cars when compared to European rivals, the Legend is no exception. The exterior is understated and a little bland; it lacks occasion or presence compared to the competition. The interior is hugely spacious and comfortable though with great fit and finish, but a dubious design. Where Audis feature brushed metals and soft plastics, the Honda suffers from large expanses of highly reflective 'wood' trim and some only average materials.

Engine & Transmission:

Honda doesn't make a bad engine anywhere in its empire so it's no surprise that its range topping luxury car boasts a marvellously accomplished high technology unit. In this case a petrol V6 of 3.5-litres capacity. It combines impeccable manners and refinement with a decent amount of power and a broad spread of torque. Performance is stunted by the not insignificant weight of the car, but still remains strong.

The automatic gearbox slurs ratios as smoothly as you could want and holds the gears intelligently when pressing on. The 'sport' mode is good, but the manual shift quality is a little slow and the high-tech all-wheel drive system gives good levels of traction in all conditions as well as improving the handling thanks to clever torque sensing and apportionment.

Ride & Handling:

Honda's Legend is a fine car to waft along in, but that weight can't help but hurt dynamic capabilities. The clever four-wheel drive system shows real promise and does its best to contain the momentum of the beast, but a BMW 5 Series drives rings around it.

The core strength of the Legend is its ability to cosset and soothe over long journeys, the supple, comfort biased suspension absorbing most of what our poor roads can throw at it and shrugging off imperfections that would have more sporting rivals writhing.

Equipment, Economy & Value for Money:

I stopped counting the buttons in the interior when I got to 60; suffice to say as the gadget quotient in the Legend is more than adequate. It has every possible feature one can think of, including some of the latest innovations in dynamic safety in the shape of Lane Change Assist.

Weight and energy sapping four-wheel drive restricts real world economy to the low twenties (mpg), but being a Honda reliability should be class leading and servicing will be cheap in comparison to prestige rivals.

The list price is keen too, based on metal-for-your-money and equipment levels, but depreciation is likely to be harsh, especially considering the second hand market's judgement of the previous Legend.

Overall:

Hondas are eminently likeable, but they always seem to fall down when trying to step up to the prestige/executive level. The Legend has many of the facets required to tackle the German hierarchy head-on, but the somewhat traditional bug bears of interior trim, image and appearance remain. I think the car will go down a storm in the USA, but here in the UK you'd have to have a real dislike for the more obvious premium choices to pick the Honda purely on merit.