The Legend uses a 295bhp 3.5-litre V6 engine driving all four wheels and comes with a five-speed automatic gearbox as standard. It will reach 62mph from rest in 7.2 seconds but while the engine is smooth it doesn’t feel particularly responsive and lacks low down pulling power. As a result it needs to be revved hard – fine for a hot hatch but not what you want in an executive saloon.

The gearbox hampers performance too and the five-speed automatic isn’t especially smooth, particularly in kick-down, while the ratios don’t seem to have been set with the engine’s high-revving nature in mind.

Honda’s four-wheel drive system in the Legend is key to its amazing handling ability. Dubbed ‘Super Handling All-wheel Drive’ (SH-AWD) the system not only splits pulling power between the front and rear axles, but it can also vary the amount delivered to each individual rear wheel. It means that if the Legend goes into a bend too fast and the front end begins to push wide, the outer rear wheel deploys more power to correct the line before the driver really notices anything is wrong.

The Legend can be thrown into a series of bends with incredible levels of grip while the steering is set up to offer excellent precision if a little lacking in feedback. It’s certainly not the barge that the previous front-wheel drive Legend was.