Inside, the Legend may not be the last word in ambience, but it makes a
strong case for itself nonetheless. Although there isn’t as much room in the rear or usable space in the boot as you'd find in the most accommodating of its rivals, there’s no doubt about the quality of the materials or the layout of the controls.
Even more impressive is the standard equipment tally, which includes adaptive headlights, a reversing camera, eight-way electrically adjustable heated and cooled front seats, leather, a 10-speaker Bose audio system, a hands-free phone and sat-nav.
Choose the range-topping model and you’ll get the pick of Honda's latest driver aids, too. It has a Crash Mitigation Braking System that can detect an unavoidable front-end collision and automatically apply the brakes.
There’s Adaptive Cruise Control, which adjusts your speed in order to
maintain the gap to the car in front. And the new Lane Keeping Assist System uses a camera to detect the boundaries of the lane you're in and steers the car to keep you between them.
However, to get all that you have to pay £39,000 and you can have a
V8-powered BMW 540i (albeit a less well-equipped one) for less. The BMW wouldn’t be much more expensive to fuel, either: we recorded a very disappointing 21.7mpg average in the Legend - a considerable thirst, even by V8 standards.