The new 17' NSX is without a doubt a head turner when rolling down the street just like most exotics and I have a problem with it. Not with the HW cast, oh no, it is perfect. Well proportioned, properly detailed front and rear and the dark blue is a great touch.
My concern is with the actual 1:1, it’s a cause for jubilation that Honda/Acura made another sports car considering it took them about 10 years to get around making instead of teasing us with concepts year after year.
The biggest problem I have with this car is the identity that Honda/Acura gave it: NSX. Adding that nameplate to this car makes it the successor to the original NSX which got the guidance of driving god Ayrton Senna is total B.S. The relation of this new NSX to the old NSX is absolutely zero percent, in every measurable way, there’s no styling resemblance whatsoever and that is before talking about the mechanicals underneath.
The original NSX was a lightweight, naturally aspirated pure driving machine with the driver become one with the car, the new NSX is a giant middle finger to all of that. It’s weighed down by all the electric motor/battery sophistication, engine now is force induction, and the steering is to some review uncommunicative and described as like playing a video game. What a way to throw everything that Ayrton Senna perfected on the original one out the window. Sure, the hybrid set up gift it virtually immediate acceleration, cornering with surgical precision, and return un-sportscar like fuel economy. Does this new NSX look cool? Yes. Does its performance figures impress? Yeah. Will Honda/Acura find customers for these? Of course. But does it deserve the NSX badge? I’m gonna have to say no.
It’s way too heavy and too complicated for it’s own good and slightly too expensive compare to its competitors. The new Audi R8 got practicality and performance to spare with a gloriously sounding V10 engine that produces more power and none of the turbos or electric motors for slightly less. Which is why the R8 is the path I’ll take if I got that kind of money to spend on a car. I respect Honda/Acura’s achievement with this car, but I don’t admire it.