Comparing Acura and Lexus: Which Luxury Brand is Right for You?

Brand Image & Value

Two coveted characteristics of any luxury car manufacturer are brand recognition and overall value. These factors are so important to many prospective buyers that they can often make or break a purchasing decision. The Kelley Blue Book Consumer Choice Awards¹ are a great way to track both of these qualities, and indeed, Acura took home the Best Value Luxury Brand award for 2025. In fact, if you group brands by manufacturer, Acura’s parent company of Honda took home more Consumer Choice Awards than any other manufacturer by a wide margin, showing a serious commitment to quality.

Safety

Whether you spend most of your time behind the wheel by yourself or with all of your loved ones, safety remains another priority for drivers searching for the right luxury vehicle. In the luxury sports sedan segment, the Acura Integra sets the benchmark that the competition tries to emulate. It received a Top Safety Pick+ rating from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS)^[3]. The Integra debuted an innovative new multi-chamber passenger front airbag technology, an industry-first technology designed to save lives. This historic victory means that the Integra joins the Acura RDX compact SUV and MDX midsize SUV in receiving the IIHS’s pinnacle safety awards for the brand..

American-Made Quality

Cars.com has released its 2024 American-Made Index which assesses several factors including assembly location, domestic-parts content, U.S. factory employment adjusted by sales, along with engine and transmission origin. The list comprises the top 100 models across the industry², and every Acura model (apart from the ZDX and ADX, both of which are too new to be on the list) is in the top 20. Lexus, by contrast, has only one model on the list at all. The comparison really isn’t even close.

• 2024 Acura MDX (East Liberty, Ohio or Marysville, Ohio) — 12th place
• 2024 Acura RDX (East Liberty, Ohio or Marysville, Ohio) — 15th place
• 2024 Acura Integra (Marysville, Ohio) — 17th place
• 2024 Acura TLX (Marysville, Ohio) — 18th place

Luxury & Prestige

Acura remains committed to pushing the boundaries of luxury and comfort without compromising on industry-leading value. This dedication has not gone unnoticed. The North American Car of the Year award is one of the most prestigious that a vehicle can win, since there is only one every year. Generally, these awards go to a vehicle that has made its initial debut that year, so the MDX won for 2001 and the Integra won for 2023. That’s more awards than Lexus has won, but that’s not difficult, since no Lexus model has ever won this award.