The original Acura NSX: Development history and driving the icon
The Idea
The NSX was an extremely risky project for Honda, a company that in the
late 1980's was nowhere near the corporate juggernaut that it is today.
Honda's eponymous founder, Soichiro Honda, was still involved in
decision-making at the company during this time under the role of
"Supreme Advisor," and it is debatable whether the NSX project in its
infancy would have gone forward at all had he not still been pushing the
company towards the spirit of technical achievement it had been known
for in the prior decades. Mr. Honda was still so involved during this
period, in fact, that when the first batch of 300 production NSXs were
made with a version of the Acura badge he didn't like, he ordered all of
the cars stopped at port in the USA, the new badges applied, and the
offending incorrect badges sent back to Japan to be systematically
destroyed. This was clearly a man who paid attention to the details, but
I digress.
Honda as a company devoted $140 million dollars to the NSX project ($250
million in today's money), half of which would go to developing the
car, and the remainder of which would go to building a new
state-of-the-art factory to assemble it. Honda's own goals for the NSX
were actually exactly as most media stories portray the car today: to
build a bona-fide exotic supercar,
but one without the ergonomic and reliability penalties associated with
that type of car. They didn't want to sacrifice the needs of the driver
to the supposed demands of performance, demands that they felt didn't
have to be there in making a truly top-level performance machine. The
R&D team wanted a car that could hang with heavyweight exotics in a
straight line, play with smaller and more lightweight sports cars
in the curves, and cruise in serenity on the freeway. Essentially, they
wanted it all, and the brief was to have a car that could do everything
without compromise.
Said goal was not just wishful thinking at the time, it was actually
considered impossible – at any price. There was no way in hell anyone
could make a car lightweight, comfortable, ergonomic, quiet, loud,
sporty, aggressive, and powerful all at the same time. Contemporary
exotic cars – the Ferrari 328 & 348, Lotus Esprits, Porsche 911s, and Chevrolet
Corvettes – all had huge compromises in various departments, and that's
just the way a supercar had to be. These quirks were part of the
so-called exotic car experience, and drivers & reviewers welcomed
them because they couldn't imagine it being any other way. Plus, the
idea of Honda making a supercar? Everyone (including the competition)
laughed when they heard the notion. Honda didn't make supercars, they
made cheap economy hatchbacks and scooters. It simply wouldn't happen,
or so they thought.
(AutoBlog.com)
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