cbehney

That whole post is very impressive, well-argued, beautifully written, convincing.

s2kpdx01

I fixed it.
How does one prove or disprove this? Sales numbers don't seem right as no matter what it won't sell a ton.

I'm sure it will drive well and have a ton of technology. It looks ok, but it won't be setting any lap records or competing performance wise with a 2015 ferrari of any kind unless they move down stream from 500+ HP cars. I doubt that will happen.

Nothing in your eloquent, albeit long love story about honda tells me how I would know if the new NSX is actually a great car or not. It ultimately will be just a few people that own one saying how great it is and everyone else not really caring that much as it will be $150k+.

Here is my prediction:
Since it won't race it will have a hard time building an enthusiastic following. It's not a million dollar crazy assed super car that just gets a following because it's a million dollar crazy assed super car. It won't be mod friendly so it won't be like the supra. It will just be a showpiece for technology. If that is it's measure of success then it will be successful. Otherwise it feels like a failure. But, just like your opinion it's just my opinion and ultimately no one will care.

JonBoy

I think you're making his point. You're saying "There's nothing special here" and he's saying "Based on both the S2000 and NSX, there's probably more than meets the eye." Honda's CEO himself said that this car is about minimal weight and moderate power to achieve high performance. That would generally mean there's not much to see....until you drive it.

Racing? Unless you're Porsche or Ferrari, no one is really racing all the time. Lamborghini has a small series for their cars and a few others that race in LeMans-style races but they're not big into it. Nissan's GT-R races in the Super GT series but I don't believe it races in LeMans or anything like that. Lotus is in the same boat, really (F1 team hardly constitutes racing a road car). Toyota's LF-A is in the same boat as this NSX in that it's not really a racing car (they did run the Nurburgring races and I'm sure a few others but again, nothing continuous, well-reported or consistent). Lexus had no problem selling those cars...

s2kpdx01

I think there is to see what there is to see. It's a polarizing design and a lot of technology that may or may not translate into great performance. If you look at all the electronic shiz there is a lot going on with this car. It's the opposite of what I would consider a simple car aimed at the super car ranks. I just don't see much I care about. Even at 3300 lbs thats not light. That run of the mill weight. If it comes in at < 3000 with all those gizmos I will eat my hat, luckily for me I never wear a hat. That would be fantastic and quite an achievement. If it ends up weighing in at 3300lbs or more with moderate performance and a bunch of electronic wizardy to go wrong or not hold up to racing..it seems like a fail to me. I think it's more likely that is what happens to it.

It probably won't be in the LFA ranks in terms of price. Of all the cars you listed lambo and the GTR might be the closest analogies. I guess for me Honda has a rich history in racing and it would be nice to see the top of line honda racing again. With the trick AWD system and the electric motors I don't see it racing either at a pro or club level at least not without huge modifications to the drive train ala the GTR.

I don't see how this car becomes a hit with enthusiasts. Is it just a toy for the rich? It doesn't have the nameplate for that. Saying lexus sold all the LFAs isn't really relevant. Unless Honda has much different plans for this car then I think they do I don't think 399 or whatever number of LFAs sold is their goal. The LFA would of been a disaster were they trying for 458 numbers in sales.

Mr.E.G.

S2kpdx01,

Yeah, I'm not really sure how to offer a rebuttal since I don't think you really addressed any of the points I made. My points, in no particular order, were that people need to quite complaining about how Honda has lost its mojo since this car seems to me to be perfectly consistent with Honda's mojo. Whether they ever had mojo or not is another discussion altogether, but specifically, I was lambasting the former Honda fans who are upset that they aren't getting a V-10; this is just business as usual for Honda. Additionally, I made the point that Honda has never built a world beater and I don't see them doing that now. Instead, they build cars that beat their direct competitors but more importantly, they take a novel and characteristically underdog approach in doing so.

Additionally, I made the point that this car is going to be packed with technology as another approach to gaining supercar performance rather than packing a ton of power.

As far as racing is concerned, I beg to differ. This is all speculation of course, but in the immediate future you have the 911 hybrid that is running in a class of its own at the 24 hours of Le Mans. I completely believe that Porsche is setting the trend and others will follow, which the NSX would fall right into place with. I could very easily see a works team coming of this car because it's PR gold. "We too a hybrid to Le Mans and kicked some butt." It appeals to the hippies, it appeals to tech nerds, it appeals to racing fans. But most importantly, it shows that Honda is at the forefront (ok, right behind Porsche) in terms of hybrid technology on the racetrack. I can see the ads now. "We build our hybrids to withstand the abuse of a race environment. They'll take your commute in stride." Lest you forget that the NSX went to Le Mans and won its class outright with a works team.

Another thing, Honda is building this to target their direct competitors. Just because they had their sites set on Ferrari the last go around, I don't see any reason that Ferrari is who they're aiming for this time around. They have ACTUAL competitors to worry about. Lexus has a supercar. Audi has a supercar. Mercedes has a supercar. BMW has some fast-ish cars. :-)

They don't need to beat the 458. They need to beat or at least be equal to the Audi R8, the Mercedes SLS, the Lexus LFA, etc. Someone is buying those cars and they are all picking up the rear of the supercar spectrum in terms of performance. As it stands, NOTHING in the supercar market is drawing blood from the 458. Are all of those cars absolete?

Also, your comments about how does one prove or disprove... Well, I'm not sure what you're getting at. That's an opinion, however, if the car comes out and it isn't in dead last place in terms of performance, I'd say that's a pretty good indication that it's not the joke of the supercar world. I'm not sure what you're not getting and/ or I'm not sure why you think I need to prove it. Wut??? Are you referring to my wager comments? Obviously that would have to be based on my proposed specs, not some obscure concept. I hope you didn't think that's what I was wanting to make a wager on.

Lastly, be honest (this is just a thought experiment so don't get too worked up). Do you legitimately think that Dodge could build a V6 hybrid that can hang out with supercars? Serious question? Do you think that if they dropped the V10 from the Viper and went with a smallish displacement hybrid setup that they could be taken seriously in the company of supercars?

THAT is the point. The Viper is fvkking awesome, don't get me wrong, but the supercar world is littered with high horsepower cars. Honda is bringing a car that will run mid pack and take a different approach in doing so as a means of showcasing nothing more than their ability to do just that. THAT's the point. They're bringing a knife to a gun fight, only their knife just so happens to be a light saber.

They don't have to beat the 458 for the car to make a splash. I think they've got a recipe that will outperform the Audi R8, the vast majority of 911s, the SLS, probably the Guillardo, anything BMW has to offer, and it probably won't get entirely raped by the GT-R.

Mr.E.G.

One other thing I'll completely disagree with you on is that it won't have an enthusiastic following. For better or for worse we're 10 pages deep in this thread. The car is polarizing enough that we'll at least be curious to see what it can do and I'd speculate that it will no worse a following than the original NSX, which has a pretty good following, I'd say.

Mr.E.G.

Sorry, one last thing. I just did some light checking and the numbers I found came from the interweb and may not be accurate, but so far it seems like the NSx sold on average about 1,300-1,500 per year worldwide. The Viper seems to be right at the same average range and the GT-R seems to be slightly less.

Again, my numbers are wikipedia powered, so they could be all jacked up, but if the are correct, I think you'll see the point I'm trying to make.

s2kpdx01

Right now it's a hopeful following. The jury is still out on when it actually comes out. I would expect the enthusiastic following to drop off, but we will have to wait and see until fvking 2015....sigh.

Mr.E.G.

Hahaha. That's the truth.

s2kpdx01

It becomes hard when a post is 700+ words to keep track of what it's saying or what i'm saying about it.

When the original NSX came out it had 270 hp and the 348 had 300hp. It weighed about 3000lbs with the 348 coming in a little higher. it was also about $60k and the 348 was about $117k or so. So performance wise it was right there with the top of the line NA V8 ferrari. Hence the whole power of a V8 fuel economy of a V6. That is pretty much the slogan they are using now with all of their hybrid V6 AWD power trains. Now if it only has to beat the lowly R8 V8 then ok maybe, but that seems to be setting their sights a lot lower then they used to. Remember it won't be out until 2015...so saying all it has to do is beat an audi that was released in 2007. The R8 is due to be replaced by an all new model in 2014 too.

As far as their mojo, going after ferrari with the original NSX and succeeding in every measurable way took cajones. Seems to some they have lost that.

I agree it will be packed with technology. Will that translate in to supercar performance that is the 60 million dollar question. I believe it won't.

We will have to wait and see how the hybrid racing stuff turns out. The works team won with a non-hybrid NSX. I'm not sure about the specifications of that car, but up until they replaced the NSX with the HSV-010 they were running a turbo version of the engine in order to compete. That's not exactly racing the same car. If they end up having to replace the hybrid stuff in order to compete with the new one i wouldn't consider that actually racing the same car..at all.


"If you want to be the best you have to beat the best." Maybe they don't care about being the best...I could see that.

The R8 is being replaced in 2014 and I don't know about the other cars. By the time the new NSX actually makes it to market I would say those cars will be obsolete.

I wasn't sure what you were getting at to be honest. So if it's not dead last in the super car performance category then it's a success.....hmmm... I would hope they are shooting higher then second to last.

No, it's nothing they care about. Fiat could if they wanted to, but again not really in their wheelhouse. A lot of what dodge is doing right now looks good though. It will be interesting to see how some of the projects turn out including the new viper.

I have never compared the new nsx to the viper for obvious reasons. They are both taking pretty much the exact opposite approaches to performance. But, one has reached super car performance wether it's a super car is up for debate, while the jury is out wether the other will reach true super car performance with all it's technology.

We will have wait...a long time...and then see. We will revisit this thread then!