The city's lousy streets are perfect for testing suspensions and vehicle maneuverability. I was driving the 2000 Acura 3.2TL sedan, a car that handles beautifully on smooth highways and winding back roads. I wanted to see if it had any funk. That's ''funk'' as in dance, jazz, motorized hip-hop. D.C. streets, with their potholes, dig sites and pathetic patchwork, have a way of upsetting cars and trucks.
Vehicles lose their rhythm.
They halt before dips, panic-brake at pothole edges and quiver nervously in the vicinity of cable digs. Even drivers of mighty sport-utility vehicles pause before traversable cracks and ruts, which makes me wonder why they have those brutemobiles in the first place. It's ugly, unbecoming. So I wanted to see what the 3.2TL could do. You just shift the lever down, flip it to the left gate and work the gears without having to push a clutch.