Curry Acura

Acura's recently announced entry-level luxury sedan, the Acura ILX, will be built in America, the company said. The move marks the fifth vehicle from Acura ? joining the MDX, RDX, ZDX and TL ? that will be built in North America. The Acura RL and Acura's current entry-level car, the TSX, are built in Japan.

The ILX will be offered in three powertrains, and one will include a hybrid system. The hybrid model will also be built in America, and it will be parent company Honda's first hybrid model assembled in the U.S. The Honda Insight and Honda Civic Hybrid are built in Japan.

The ILX will be built at Honda's relatively new Greensburg, Ind., plant, which currently builds the Honda Civic. The ILX will be based off the Civic platform but will look nothing like the current Civic or the Canadian-marketed Acura CSX (which is essentially a Civic clone), Vicki Poponi, American Honda assistant vice president for product planning.

The ILX will go into production in the spring. The model will accompany a totally redesigned RDX based off the restyled 2013 Honda CR-V, which will also arrive at dealerships around the same times as the ILX.

While the TSX was based on the Honda Accord, the ILX will be built from Honda's Civic platform. Acura hasn't used the Civic as a base for one of its sedans in the United States since the four-door Acura Integra was discontinued in 2001, but has sold the Civic-based Acura EL (and later, CSX) sedan in Canada since 1997. As with the current CSX, using the Civic platform will be the key to containing the ILX's cost.

The ILX will start at "well under" $30,000, a price point that the outgoing TSX sedan simply couldn't reach. Three powertrain options are planned, including a 2.0-liter four-cylinder coupled to an automatic transmission, a 2.4-liter four-cylinder mated to a six-speed manual and a 1.5-liter four linked to Honda's IMA hybrid system.

All will be built in Honda's Greensburg, Indiana plant, alongside the Honda Civic. The hybrid Acura ILX will be the first hybrid built by Honda in North America, as allHonda Civic Hybrids have been imported from Japan to date.

Acura has ambitious plans for the ILX, and hopes to sell some 40,000 units annually. To put that number in perspective, Acura has sold some 27,389 TSX models through November, which works out to be just under 30,000 units per year. In other words, Acura expects the new ILX to deliver 33.3 percent more sales than the outgoing Acura TSX.

Look for the 2013 Acura ILX to debut at January's Detroit Auto Show, with sales beginning around the second quarter of 2012