ZDXzine

probably not but who knows how the economy and target market for the NSX replacement will be. Or rather when...

:eek5:

oscarhmoyano

What are you smoking? It has been almost 20 years since the NSX showed up, the NSX changed the rules on exotic/supercars forever, only the 360 was a "bit" superior than the NSX but it took Ferrari a decade to catch up .. the 3.2 still after 12 years fast (0-60= 4.5 . 13 flat) that been a car that is not intended to drag, the looks after 20 years are still amazing .....

I can go on and on ....

Not the best car ever, but taking in consideration that Gordon Murray used the NSX as reference to build the Mclaren F1 road car means a lot ....

Oscar

PS: Slap a SC on a 3.2 and you'll have 400 @ the wheels, remove the 150lb of unnecessary extra weight, give the car to a good driver and you'll eat 99% of any cars on the track, that is not just a talk, is true.

TheOtherDave™

Go back to my original post and read my comment in the context it was posted. Show me where I said the NSX was insignificant, needless or completely flawed.

You can't, because I didn't.

Now before I go any further, let's make one thing clear: I agree with you that the NSX was a spectacular car to drive. So much so that since the half-hour I had with an NA1 nearly a decade ago, I've been saving for an NA2 of my own.

But for the purpose of this discussion, let's take off the rose-colored glasses and think about the NA1 / NA2 and the AP1/ AP2 in economic terms. That is the context from which you've cherry-picked my words.

The original poster asked whether I thought Honda was likely to re-enter the exotic car market. Given the retail success of the S2000, I said it would make more sense for Honda to continue to compete in the $35K sports car market.

As the sales numbers have proven, It was easier for people to justify spending $36K on a S2000 than thrice that on the NSX. And the AP1/AP2 delivered eight-tenths of the performance and exhilaration of an NA2 with less displacement, two fewer cylinders and most importantly, a conventional steel monocoque.

The car business isn't a charity. Every manufacturer has to build products that match what people expect of the brand. For a small company like Honda, more people understood and sought out the value of an AP1/AP2.

That doesn't diminish the accomplishments of the NSX.
The NSX deserves a lot of credit.
But it doesn't deserve sycophantic devotion.

I have been giving credit where credit is due. And for the displacement, a 13-second quarter mile is impressive. But as time wore on for the NA2, an entire genre of cars started nipping at its heels, both at the drag strip and on the twisties.

Now I absolutely hate magazine racing, but since you've opened the door, let's stop cherry-picking exotics like the F360 and look at the entire sports car market. That's what most buyers were doing at the time.

In 1997, it was a driver's race between an NSX-T, an F355 and the 911 Turbo.
In 2001, the C5 Z06 would be a car-length ahead at the end of the quarter mile.
By 2004, the STi and the C5 either matched or out-performed the NA2 to 60, through the quarter mile or around the skidpad.

Whether you consider an any of those cars to be of equal stature to the NSX is irrelevant. The point remains that by 2003, many cars were becoming nearly as fast. And whether you earned $50K or $500K a year, it became harder to justify the premium for an NSX when you could nearly nearly as fast on any road for less.

Leave the aftermarket out of this; it needlessly obfuscates the debate.

Once you start talking about what the aftermarket can do for one car versus another, it's no longer an apples-to-apples comparison. It's a competition between the owners' bank accounts.

Besides, if the NSX driver buys a CTSC, what is there to keep your 360 driver from buying a Novitec SC for his car? The blown 360 would still be quicker to 60, faster through the quarter and so on.

At the risk of overstating my point, consider George Poteet's 69 Cuda "Blowfish." He took a stock Hemi Cuda and turned it into a show-car quality machine that did 230mph on its first trip to Bonneville. It took $400K to get the job done.

bluetwo

Nope.... she's what we call the Done For!

Sports cars are officially daide.

Though I have to admit that red one is kinda beautiful.

slomofo

MollyStar

Exactly! Agree also