I remember my first ride in the Acura NSX (Honda originally released it as an Acura). A friend of a friend was working for Acura at the time and they allowed their employees to take one out and test drive it. So off we went to our favorite canyon back roads in SoCal and we played chase in our Porsches and the NSX. My first impressions of the NSX was wow what a stunning car. Unfortunatley, I was not offered to drive the car so my “on the road” impression was from the right seat. Additonally, the driver was more worried about wadding up his employer’s car and loosing his job than finding out if the NSX really was a Porsche beater. Still the car seemed to be on rails. It handled like a finely tuned machine, showing it’s engineering intentions as a road going race car. The 3.0 liter V6 engine seemed powerful but more peaky (high revving) than I was used to. It just didn’t seem to have that torquie punch of the Porsche 3.0 liter flat six. The car certaily made an impression on me and I would have traded it for my 911 in a second. Mostly because it was high tech at the time and that’s what I really love about new cars. However, the NSX seemed to lack the soul of a true European sports car which I think the Japanese car manufacturers still struggle to capture, even with today’s cars. I think it’s one of the nicest looking sports cars produced which change little in it’s 15 year production. Production started in 1990 and the last NSX was built in 2005 but rumors of a Formula 1-inspired V10 engined NSX may be in our future. Better start saving now….
