2024 Acura ZDX Type S Named the Official 2024 Pikes Peak Pace Car

• The Acura ZDX Type S has been named as the official pace car for the 102nd running of the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb in June.
• This is Acura‘s 10th year providing the official pace car for the hill-climb, and the ZDX will be the first fully electric vehicle to be the iconic race’s pace car.
• X Games professional BMX athlete and amateur drifter Coco Zurita will pilot the ZDX Type S pace car up the mountain.

Acura will run the first EV pace car ever for the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb later this summer. When the fabled Race to the Clouds takes place on June 23, it will mark the 102nd running of the event. This year is Acura’s 10th as the official pace car sponsor of the race, and the brand is switching things up by bringing the 2024 ZDX Type S SUV to serve pacing duties.

Acura named X Games professional BMX athlete and amateur drifter Coco Zurita to the task of piloting the ZDX. He has worked with Acura in the past, starting on a custom 2023 Integra build for the 2022 SEMA show and more recently with a 2024 TLX Type S build that debuted at this year’s Long Beach Grand Prix. Now, he’ll pilot the top-trim ZDX luxury electric SUV up the 12.42 miles and 156 turns involved in the hill-climb.

We recently had the chance to get behind the wheel of the ZDX Type S for the first time and found it to be reasonably sporty, if lacking enough personality to differentiate it from other sporty EV crossovers. The Type S’s dual-motor setup churns out a combined 499 horsepower and 544 pound-feet of torque that should propel the electric crossover to 60 mph in as little as 4.0 seconds.

Pricing for the top-spec Type S starts at $74,850, which is pretty steep but thankfully it’s eligible for the $7500 federal tax credit. Fortunately, so are the rear- and all-wheel-drive A-Spec models, which start at $65,850 and $69,850 respectively—though we haven’t had the chance to drive those yet.

Jack Fitzgerald’s love for cars stems from his as yet unshakable addiction to Formula 1.
After a brief stint as a detailer for a local dealership group in college, he knew he needed a more permanent way to drive all the new cars he couldn’t afford and decided to pursue a career in auto writing. By hounding his college professors at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, he was able to travel Wisconsin seeking out stories in the auto world before landing his dream job at Car and Driver. His new goal is to delay the inevitable demise of his 2010 Volkswagen Golf.