Tested: 2021 Accord Sport 2.0T Is Honda's Everyday Masterpiece

If you repeat a word enough times, it starts to lose its meaning. The phenomenon is called semantic satiation and it has to do with our brains' general intolerance for repetition. Car companies are decades into semantic satiation with the word "sport," which is overused to the point of meaninglessness. Is a sport model something that's genuinely athletic (Audi Sport Quattro), a smaller relative of something else (Ford Bronco Sport and Mitsubishi Outlander Sport), or a total enigma (Acura RLX Sport Hybrid)? In the case of the 2021 Honda Accord Sport 2.0T, the S word means that you get some added performance hardware without a lot of frills for a nice price. So, that puts it somewhere between a Chevrolet Equinox Sport and a Fiat 500 Sport, yet not at all like a Bugatti Grand Sport Vitesse. How's that semantic satiation going?

This particular Accord cribs the Touring model's 252-hp turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder and 10-speed automatic transmission but does without the luxury equipment—no leather upholstery, no booming sound system, no heated rear seats or head-up display. Honda says the Sport 2.0T weighs 50 fewer pounds than the Touring, and our scales concur. This latest test car weighed in at a trim 3377 pounds, three pounds less than Honda's official number. All that lightweighting paired with the zestiest powertrain results in a 60-mph sprint in 5.4 seconds and a quarter-mile pass in 14.0 seconds at 101 mph.

And those are easy enough times to attain. Unlike, say, the Kia K5 GT, you're not fighting wheelspin for the first 200 feet off the line in the Honda. The Accord occasionally issues a tortured moan from one of its front tires, but then it just hooks up and goes. Power builds progressively, with its 273-pound-feet torque peak arriving at 1500 rpm and staying flat to 4000 revs. If it feels like this engine is the foundation for the rip-roaring version in the Civic Type R, that's because it is. Honda says it makes its rated power on regular gas, too.

Honda's 10-speed also is a fine piece, cracking off quick upshifts in its lower gears and letting the 2.0-liter snooze below 2000 rpm at cruising speeds. Pressing the Sport's Sport button—sorry, but that's what it's called—tightens the leash, dropping the transmission down a couple gears and sharpening the engine's throttle response. Sadly, model year 2020 was the last you could get a manual transmission in any Accord, and in retrospect it's amazing there ever was one.

The Accord Sport's 19-inch 235/40R-19 Michelin Primacy MXM4 all-season tires are good for a decent 0.87 g of grip, but that figure doesn't quite tell the whole story. Our skidpad numbers are a two-way average, and most cars do slightly better when turning left because the driver's weight helps in that direction. But the Accord and its undefeatable stability control channeled the NASCAR spirit of Junior Johnson, allowing 0.91 g to the left compared to only 0.85 g to the right. Try not to spit tobacco juice on your boots as you drawl, "She's got some stagger."