Acura’s new Advanced Sports Car is no replacement for the NSX

The mighty Acura NSX finally bows out

By the beginning of this decade, sports car enthusiasts the world over knew it was just a matter of time.

Acura’s venerable aluminum wonder car, the NSX, had grown long in the tooth, and, having never received any significant updates, was no longer competitive in its class. The same sweet-handling, relatively-bargain-priced aluminum supercar that appeared in the early 1990’s and rapidly asserted its dominance over contemporaries such as the Chevy Corvette, Ferrari 348, Porsche 911, and Lotus Turbo Esprit had, by its tenth anniversary, become largely obsolete.

The 2005 model year marked the end of the line for the aged mid-engine superstar; however Honda Motor Corporation quickly moved to appease enthusiasts everywhere by declaring that a replacement was just a few years away.

But what’s NSXt?

In Detroitspeak, “a few years” is usually damn near a decade, with plans changing and warring factions within the company fighting petty battles that delay a new model’s introduction by months if not years. Honda, however, has the reputation of delivering the products on a basis so timely that it rivals the punctuality of a Swiss train.

It’s therefore not surprising that Honda chose the 2007 Detroit Auto Show (okay, okay, “North American International Auto Show”) for this much-awaited vehicle’s introduction.

The adage “large shoes to fill” was appropriate, yet certainly an understatement with regard to the new vehicle’s introduction, but Honda declared that good things were on the horizon, and hey, who wouldn’t believe such a claim coming from Honda?



Advanced Sports Car?

When the curtain went up on the NSX’s successor last month, the concept car on stage was clearly anything but a direct replacement.

A front-engine GT car in the same vein as an Aston Martin DB9, this swoopy futurecar appeared more “sporting” than “sports,” with a sexy Ferrari-esque “Coke bottle” shape completely undermining the original car’s strict “form-follows-function” design. In 15 years of automotive press, no one ever used the word “sexy” to describe an NSX.

Further setting it apart from the NSX is a proposed monster V-10 engine for the shadowy silver concept (which Honda officials creatively refer to as the “Advanced Sports Car”). The contrast here just cannot be more obvious! When the NSX came on the seen, it went up against the best high-performance powerplants in the world, besting them in nearly all relevant categories with a superbly-engineered, normally-aspirated 3.0 liter V6. The entire concept of a small, high-revving engine in a nimble, lightweight chassis equaled a connection with the road that few vehicles ever aspire to. No matter how good of a production car this new concept may foreshadow, the formula it represents most definitely will not produce such a driver-oriented driving experience.

To top it all off, the NSX (which, at the time of its demise listed for $70,000) showed the world Honda’s proficiency in the automotive performance game by thumping many of the world’s best sports cars at half their cost. Honda officials are now confirming that the vehicle resulting from the Advanced Sports Car concept will be priced at “over $100,000” and targeted to compete with the world’s best GT touring cars (such as the aforementioned Aston, as well as the BMW M6).

Kill terrific sports car + introduce more expensive, less sporty car = NOT SUCCESS

While Honda may think that it has already “done” sports cars, and is now moving on to bigger, better, and more profitable things, they don’t seem to see this as what it really is – a move away from one of their absolute core competencies (light, small, agile), and, in layman’s terms, a big mistake.

“Dance with the one that brung ya” has typically remained Honda’s motto over the past 40 years, and in many ways, they do that very, very well (with fun-to-drive, fuel-sipping small cars such as the Insight, Civic, S2000, etc.). A new dance partner (named “Higher Profits”) has enticed them, however, and, unfortunately for sports car true believers, they seem to have waltzed away from their first love.

And this means???

It means that Honda has screwed up, and even if this new GT car is a big hit (and that’s a sizeable “if”), sports car purists will not soon forgive or forget.

Personally, I like what I’m seeing here, and I don’t mean the emergence of another overwrought, “me-too,” hundred-thousand-dollar touring coupe.

My satisfaction from this entire sad scenario stems from the fact that, while I respect Honda immensely, my blood runs Dearborn blue, and nearly any misstep for Honda equals a victory (though in this case, small and virtually insignificant) for the American auto industry.

If only Honda would screw up mainstream vehicles like it’s about to screw up the replacement for the Acura NSX! Morphing the perennially best-selling Accord into a $40,000 “near-luxury” segment vehicle would so miff (and mystify) at least two generations of car buyers that domestic automakers would regain a good 5% market share overnight!

Could this singular bone-headed decision be a harbinger of things to come?

I sure hope it is

Until then, “Long live the NSX!”