Not everyone is moving in the absolutely gigantic SUV direction, thankfully. And for buyers looking for the Acura level of luxury design and performance at a more affordable entry point, the new 2025 ADX premium compact SUV is a right-sized alternative.

It’s built on a platform shared with the small Honda HR-V SUV, itself based on the new Honda Civic platform, meaning a scaled-down but still copious 186-inch-long five-passenger vehicle, loaded with looks and features commensurate to Acura’s higher-end vehicles.

It also starts at just $35,000 for a front-wheel-drive base model, so it’s clearly designed for customers who want to jump up a level from a Honda but not break the bank (HR-V currently starts at $25,400). And, still get the mechanical reliability that comes along with the Honda underpinnings. ADX is, by the way, assembled in Mexico, of American parts.

Happily, the absolute top of the heap for the ADX model is only $44,000, that being the A-Spec Advance all-wheel-drive model we got to sample for a week. The standard model is pretty well equipped, from a power tailgate to a 10.2-inch digital instrument panel and 9-inch touchscreen with standard CarPlay, as well as 18-inch wheels and a smartphone charger; the A-Spec adds 19-inch wheels, built-in Google and Alexa for the touchscreen, a five-mode dynamics system and a 15-speaker Bang & Olufsen audio system. It’s got a full cabin of red leather-trimmed seats with suede edges (seats also ventilated in the front row), glossy highlights and looks that transform a series of largely Honda-sourced controls into a sharper package. The Advance package also provides gloss black mirrors and blacked-out wheels.

Your impression of it as an embodiment of Acura performance will depend on whether or not you’re comfortable with just 190 horsepower from a 1.5-liter four-cylinder turbo and a continuously variable transmission. I had to remember that occasional power limitation when merging or keeping up during freeway drives — Car and Driver magazine’s testing showed 0-60 times of 8.7 seconds, which might not strike you as being exceptionally Acura-esque. 

Overall, I found it mostly capable, and also able to get as much as 30 mpg on the highway. I also got a reasonable amount of noise from its 19-inch tires, probably due to this lacking the additional real estate of a larger SUV. It’ll provide about 54 cubic feet of storage if you drop the second-row seats, and has about 23 cubic feet in the rear under a tonneau cover, with some extra room under the deck in the Lego-styled structural space trays you’ll find in many new vehicles. 

Honda/Acura’s other news of the week is that it is launching its own internal automobile insurance agency, Honda Insurance Solutions, which will provide comparative price quotes from various insurance carriers for auto, home and even renter’s insurance policies. 

And, for those looking for all-electric performance on the horizon, the new EV version of the resuscitated Prelude will, for its 2026 model, include suspension and Brembo braking borrowed from the Civic Type R racer. 

Andy Stonehouse’s column “Mountain Wheels” publishes Saturdays in the Summit Daily News. Stonehouse has worked as an editor and writer in Colorado since 1998, focusing on automotive coverage since 2004. He lives in Golden. Contact him at summitmountainwheels@gmail.com.