Supercars have a natural affinity with superlatives. They are, after all, built to be the fastest, the most powerful and the most outlandish.
They are also an exercise in demonstrating their owners’ wealth and prowess. Some boast the biggest engine or the highest speed, while others flaunt their lap time at the Nurburgring race circuit. Some are even positioned, albeit discreetly, as the most dangerous, a tacit testament to their driver’s bravado.
One of the less fought-over titles in the world of the supercar, though, is “most useable” – one that is easiest to live with on a daily basis, delivering a high performance driving experience in a low-effort manner. In fact, only one carmaker has ever set out to secure such a title.
Back in 1990, the original Honda NSX was released to considerable acclaim. At the time, it was seen as the Japanese marque’s attempt to capitalise on the dominance of its Formula 1 racing engine. It also made much of the supposed involvement of Ayrton Senna, the one-time F1 world champion, in its development.
The first generation NSX lived up well to all the hype. It was very fast and came with excellent handling, making it more than a match for anything offered by Ferrari or Porsche on pretty much any racetrack you care to name. It was also very easy to live with and resoundingly easy to get in and out of, while also being astonishingly comfortable to drive.
Ostensibly, this new second generation NSX offers more of the same – a state-of-the-art road car with performance allied to relaxed driving comfort. Unfortunately, its pursuit of such objectives is often far from cutting edge. In an age where performance machines opt for carbon fibre rather than metal, reducing mass and increasing rigidity, the new NSX offers only a comparatively low-tech aluminium chassis, albeit one with a carbon floor in a token nod to weight reduction.
It’s not just this metal chassis, however, that contributes to the NSX’s noticeable weight problem. The car also follows the current trend for combining a relatively modest petrol engine with a supplementary electric motor, that offers added boost when required. Electric motors, though, need batteries and batteries are, inevitably, heavy.
At a chunky 1,725kg, the NSX is some 80kg or so heavier than a Mercedes AMG GT (see Gafencu November 2015), 170 kilos more than an Audi R8 V10, and an eye-watering 410kg more than the McLaren 570S. Big mass needs big force to make it go. Fortunately, the NSX isn’t lacking in that department, with no fewer than four motors compensating for that additional electro-flab.
The star attraction is its transverse-mounted 3.5-litre V6 turbo, easily capable of pumping out around 500bhp. This petrol engine also has a helper driving the rear axle – a 105 lb-ft electric motor. Each front wheel also has its own electric support of around 54 lb-ft, giving the NSX a rear-biased four-wheel drive.
With all four motors working flat out together, they produce a total thrust of 573bhp and 476 lb-ft, more than enough to drag the car’s considerable mass from nought to 62mph in just three seconds. Its top speed, meanwhile, is just the wrong side of the magic 200mph mark, coming in at a not-unimpressive 191.
The striking thing about the way the NSX delivers its acceleration, though, is its sheer immediacy. From a standing start, its combination of electric propulsion and all-wheel traction makes for a getaway that is almost savage in its efficiency. A conscious effort is required to push the throttle pedal hard, though, largely because, by the time your right-Nike has moved halfway through the accelerator’s travel, the rearward forces acting on your foot are already nearly enough to make its journey to the fully-open position something of a struggle. It’s that instant and it’s that potent.
With a comparatively modest power unit of just 3.5 turbo-charged litres, the sound from the tailpipes is a little on the thin and whiney side, at least when compared to other supercars. To be fair, the engineers seem to have been aware of this, with the NSX consequently fitted with a system that pipes some of the exhaust noise directly to the firewall just behind the seats. The result makes the car seem louder than it really is.
After the shock of the initial getaway, the experience of driving the NSX hard comes as an odd combination of the frenetic and the serene. With no fewer than nine forward ratios in its dual-clutch gearbox, it can feel like the work of changing gear is never done. Its different cogs are so closely set that no single gear feels right for all that long. The changes, however, are quick and smooth.
Fortunately, the petrol engine has a broad power band, delivering near peak torque from 2,000 rpm up to around 6,000. Indeed, only searching for the last few tenths of a second lap time would actually justify that trip to the rather more shrill 7,500 redline.
Overall, its handling is improved by a pair of independently operated electric motors, each driving one of the wheels. The “torque vectoring” effect, meanwhile, keeps the car pointing in the right direction, applying extra force when and where it’s needed.
Another technical triumph is the brake-feel. As a hybrid, the NSX harvests much of the energy usually squandered during braking, repurposing it to recharge the batteries. Again, in most petrol-electric combos, the system can be detected through the brake pedal, largely thanks to a rather unsettling sensation that somewhat undermines driver confidence. Not so with the NSX, however, with the stoppers feeling natural and progressive.
Blending out of the brakes on the turn-in to a bend, the car shifts posture quickly and smoothly. It does, however, tend towards a slight under-steer on all but the fiercest “track” settings of its four driving modes.
Despite its battery-ballast, the cornering force remains tremendous. Thanks to that clever all-wheel-drive, the traction is excellent when it comes to accelerating out of corners, allowing early throttle application with little worry about the front or back end running out of grip. On the downside, the steering is, perhaps, a little vague, but no worse than its contemporaries labouring under similar electric power assistance.
The NSX is perfectly capable of matching similarly positioned and priced cars when it comes to high-speed track attack stuff. Only a few supercar owners, though, ever actually get to explore their mounts’ full potential.
A more realistic test of the way such cars are used on the road comes courtesy of the occasional blast of speed required to humiliate rivals or impress intended conquests. That and, of course, sustained periods of fairly fast driving. To be fair to the NSX, it does both of these very, very well indeed.
Unlike a number of other hybrids, there’s no plug on the NSX. Its electric motors are included solely as a means of boosting short-term performance, an area where they excel. A brief surge of power is always available – very quickly and very powerfully – even if you find yourself seven gear ratios away from where you really ought to be.
The other real-world application of supercars, though, is best achieved in the softest of the driving modes – “quiet.” And, indeed, this nomenclature is apt. In such a mode, the exhaust is at its quietest, the engine is limited to just 4,000 rpm and the near-silent electric motors are extensively employed.
Even in this lullaby setting, the NSX is much faster than 99 per cent of other road traffic. In fact, it’s very easy and very comfortable to go very fast. If the objective was to make quite the nicest, most usable supercar, then the design team behind NSX may very well have succeeded.
As a technical exercise, the original 1990 NSX was something of a triumph. As a sales exercise, though, it was far less compelling, selling just 18,000 units over its 15-year production run. By comparison, more than 11,000 of the Ferrari 355, its more expensive and arguably lower performance contemporary, were sold in just over five years.
Whether the new NSX will prove something more than a footnote in supercar history, though, remains to be seen. While the niche is clearly bigger than it was 25 years ago, with more people in search of a way to show off their wealth, supercars have also become easier to live with. Wealthy customers are no longer content to tolerate cramped cabins and difficult driving positions.
This ubiquity of its user-friendly rivals, though, rather robs the NSX of its USP, as does the raft of petrol-electric hybrid two-seater land missile alternatives. To make matters worse, in the early 1990s, the company’s name was synonymous with race-track excellence. Honda’s recent return to Formula 1, under the latest petrol-electric engine rules, has proved a very expensive humiliation, winning it the reputation of having the slowest and most unreliable power unit on the grid. Not good advertising for its similarly-powered road going supercar it has to be said.
In all likelihood, the new NSX will go the way of its senior sibling – earning plaudits for its excellent real world driving and enjoying an enviable status as an everyday performance car, without it, necessarily, ever making all that much money for the company that actually produced it. Rather a shame that.
Honda NSX
Engine: 3.5 litre V6 turbo, plus three electric motors
Power: 573bhp (combined)
Torque: 476 lb-ft (combined)
Transmission:
nine-speed dual
clutch rear axle, electric direct drive front axle
0-62mph: 3.0 seconds
Top speed: 191mph
Price: from £120,000 (HK$1.35 million plus import tax)
Above: Just the sort of cockpit you’d expect in a supercar of the NSX’s class