It's hard to believe, but people actually used to worry about rock stars' ability to rock once they turned forty. And if they could rock--that is, if they were still physically capable of rocking--would it still count as rock? It pains me to think now of how much time I wasted reading puerile magazine think pieces to this effect back in the 1970s and early '80s, as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and Bob Dylan approached this magical, tragical vista.

As summer 2005 roasts us slowly, news has come from The Stones camp that Jagger, Richards, and company, long since qualified for admission to the retirement communities of their choice, have decided to tour the world--again. Dylan is out on the road already. Clearly, the more appropriate question for us to start debating today is whether you can--or should--rock when you're eighty years old.

The answer is a qualified yes. What I didn't used to know is that quality endures in music, as it does in all things, including cars, but only if and when it endures, which is not often. Rock lives, sometimes.

That's not to say I think The Stones aren't a geriatric freak show. It's just that their work has outlasted its decade and the many others that followed. Thanks to something they do extraordinarily well, The Stones have a free pass to the future. It is the sort of quality Acura's NSX possesses.

The NSX is, like The Stones, hugely old. There is for it, too, no successor in sight. But unlike the sixty-something lads, for whom the red carpet is perpetually being laid out, the NSX is being readied for extinction. Introduced by Honda's newly formed upscale Acura division in 1990 as a 1991 model, its fifteen years in production total several eternities in the automotive world.

The NSX is so old I'd almost forgotten it existed as a new-car option. When one showed up unexpectedly at my doorstep the other week, I was prepared to dismiss it as a relic from another time. However, after a week in its company, I am prepared to celebrate it. Time waits for no one. But the NSX rocks hard still, in a uniquely satisfying way. A barely marketed, barely updated version of a fifteen-year-old design that goes forth with no fanfare yet dares to be a first-rank supercar, the NSX is a freak show in its own right. Few believe it to be the bomb anymore--annual sales in the low hundreds worldwide attest to that--but the NSX is every bit the wonderfully fast, fun, and practical super sports car it was back in 1990. Age has only underscored its independence, how far ahead of its time it once was. With all-aluminum construction, variable valve timing, four-channel ABS, traction control, and a limited-slip diff, it was quite the complete setup, ten years early.

On seventeen-inch aluminum wheels, the NSX rides well and handles brilliantly. Its chassis was never in question. Its styling--considered derivative from the start--was, but the main complaint was always with its V-6 engine, specifically its lack of companion cylinders. Which is just the measure of the show-off money spent on high-priced sports cars. What's wrong with incredibly sweet 3.2-liter VTEC sixes that rev to 8000 rpm and deliver five-second 0-to-60-mph times? Eight needn't do better. The NSX is a bit of a modern Ferrari Dino. It is a delicate hand tool with a mere 175-mph top speed, where a Ferrari F430, a pound lighter but 193 hp stronger, is a power tool (with a maximum velocity of 190 mph).

With Honda's typical penetrating attention to detail, the NSX remains better built than many sedans and dramatically more comfortable and usable than the claustrophobic torture chambers most mid-engined sports cars still stand in for.

The NSX's first scheduled tune-up is called for at 105,000 miles. An F430 costs more than twice as much as the $89,765 Acura, and, if history is any guide, by the time Ferrari has gone 105,000 miles, its second engine could be ready for a rebuild. Besides, 175 mph is fast enough for me.

There's one other thing about the Acura NSX. Young people still dig it. "I know it's old, but it's my favorite," one knowledgeable enthusiast, age sixteen, told me. As somewhere some kid is probably saying about old Mick and Keef right now.

-- Jamie Kitman, AUTOMOBILE, August 2005. Copyright 2005 Primedia, Inc.

 

I always liked the NSX. It stars in this book:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detai...=glance&s=books

 

NSX

 

Sorry, that angle does not do it for me. It looks like a Mitsubishi GT3000 from the front.

 

Sounds like a personal problem!

 

 

 

 

Glad you guys like these things, but lets face reality. It has no business being compared to a Ferrari F430. The fact is, many cars costing 10s of thousands of dollars less are as fast or faster and handle better. The NSX has a very high skidpad number, but comparably slow slalom speeds when compared to a Corvette or BMW M-# costing 20 to 30 thousand less. The Porsche Boxster S and 911 Carrera are as good (Boxster) or better (Carrera) if you really want a 6 cylinder car with the engine behind you. And you can get either Porsche for less than the NSX. The fact that only a few hundred are sold yearly tells the story for me.

Jamies comment about "show off money" is more appropriate to the NSX than the super cars he is wrongly comparing it to, in my humble opinion.

 

I could live with it.......hell i might even buy one....... Oh my daughter saw
Bob Dylan in Memphis.....i ask her if she could understand him......her reply
Oh.....he doesnt drink anymore......