Honda to Nix Next NSX
From Automobile Magazine (not online yet):
Just when it seemed that the Acura NSX, Japan's aluminum-bodied supercoupe, was at last to have its first full makeover, woed has reached us that Honda has had a change of heart and quietly has shelved all plans for the redesign. Translation: no new NSX.
Not surprisingly, this alarming news has been vehemently denied by Honda public relations. Our sources tell us, however, that after looking again at the design and the business case surrounding a new NSX, Honda has decided to pass, at least for now.
Behind the scenes at Honda R&D in Japan, it's been an open secret that Honda has been developing a successor to the fifteen-year-old NSX based on last year's Tokyo show HSC concept coupe. President Takeo Fukui told the automotive press that the program was ongoing and even set a debut date of 2005, which insiders privately admitted was too early; 2006 or 2007 was the more likely time for a second-generation NSX.
But with Honda reportedly having trouble getting the HSC design to gel, the crunch time came in April, when, at a top-level presentation, principal decision makers from Japan and the United States couldn't agree that the HSC-based coupe had the right stuff to succeed. Honda is turning its attention to a new luxury coupe instead.
Things move fast inside Honda. The HSC came together in only three months, and major programs can get changed in rapid order. Even so, the NSX always has been a special case. A high-performance icon and a car in which Honda has placed a lot of pride and emotion, the NSX has won plaudits and spooked Maranello but has never been a big commercial success. That and questions about how much money a successor would generate reportedly tipped the balance.
Remember, too, that the NSX was born in the '80s, when Honda was a smaller, feistier company. Today, it's much harder to make a case for a narrow-focus, expensive V-6 supercoupe when the likes of the Pilot, the Accord, the Odyssey, and the MDX are where the real action is. With a bigger, richer, and more diverse Honda fixated on robots, hybrids, fuel cells and jet aircraft, the game has changed since the NSX's heyday. And with factions inside American Honda pushing instead for a $40,000 Porsche Boxster rival, support for a new NSX was further diminished.
For enthusiasts, it's a worrisome sign. First the CRX disappeared and then the Prelude. There might not be another S2000, and now the NSX has effectively been read its last rites.
Honda will likely continue to produce and evolve the NSX in small numbers as long as there is demand. But for a wholly new edition to kick Ferrari's butt, the moment seems to have passed. Sadly.