- Acura previews bold new styling language ahead of a Monterey Car Week reveal.
- Split X-shaped taillights will influence future models, including next-gen RDX Hybrid.
- Acura will pull the covers off the unnamed concept at The Quail on August 14.
Monterey Car Week is always jam-packed with new supercars and million-dollar classics, but Acura just dropped a teaser video of a new concept that could generate just as much interest.
The 10-second clip doesn’t reveal the front, the side, or even the whole rear of the vehicle, but it does show a lighting signature that’s unlike anything currently wearing an Acura badge. The brand says it showcases Acura’s new design language, which we’ll see first on a production car in the fourth-generation Acura RDX Hybrid when it debuts for MY28.
Related: Acura Plans A Bigger SUV Than The MDX And Is Calling It The XL
The concept makes its world debut on August 14 at The Quail, a prestigious event during Monterey Car Week, and one Acura has used multiple times in the past as a platform for new cars and concepts.
Illuminated letters spelling out the Acura name stretched across the tail panel, flanked by taillights that look like someone sliced a giant letter X neatly down the middle. Each side of the car gets one half, creating an aggressive shape that appears to point toward the glowing badge in the center.
Those Lights Look Familiar?
That X motif is something you won’t find on anything currently in an Acura showroom, but it did appear on the recent Hybrid SUV concept (seen below) that Acura showed alongside a fastback Honda sedan. The Acura was believed to preview the next RDX, and the Honda a new Accord.
There are also two additional vertical light elements positioned above and below the Acura lettering. The upper strip is almost certainly the high mounted brake light, while the lower one could serve as part of the taillight assembly, be a foglight, or simply add another distinctive nighttime signature.
RDX Won’t Fail Like RSX Did
Our hunch is that the Monterey Concept will be a very thinly disguised preview of the next RDX rather than a pie-in-the-sky design exercise. Much like the RSX Concept – shown at The Quail in 2025 – would have translated almost directly into a production RSX had Acura not pulled the plug at the 11th hour this spring.
The current RDX is a front- or all-wheel-drive compact luxury SUV, which rivals models like the BMW X3 and comes exclusively with 2.0-liter turbocharged power. But it’s getting on now, having debuted in 2018, and lacks the hybrid powertrains buyers now expect – and which Acura will deliver next time around.
