MODERN CLASSIC

HERE’S WHAT HAPPENS WHEN ENGINEERS OVERPOWER MARKETING PEOPLE. LONG LIVE THE ENGINEERS

The Honda NSX is an example of what happens when engineers get their way

WAS THE HONDA NSX a failure? Bit of a loaded question, but consider this. In 16 years on sale, it shifted 18,685 units worldwide. By contrast, between 1989 and 2004, Ferrari sold nearly 38,000 examples of the V8-powered 348, F355 and 360 models, the very cars that the NSX had been designed to shuffle off into obsolescence. Of course the alternate view is that Honda came from nowhere to carve out a significant part of the junior supercar market, which would tend to ignore the fact that the Porsche 996 alone sold over 175,000 units between 1997 and 2005. It would also ignore the fact that the NSX was never a car defined by mere numbers. By today’s standards, its power and performance figures are those of a respectable hot hatch rather than an Italian exotic, but the Honda’s real power was manifested in a seismic shift in how Japanese performance cars were perceived. Wheels’ first encounter with the prototype NS-X (the hyphen was ditched for the production car) came in September 1989 when Phil Scott got to sample it at the Tochigi Proving Ground. The Japanese bubble economy was just starting to kick into top gear, with Nissan’s 300ZX and Skyline R32 GT-R appearing earlier that year, but nothing prepared Scott for his first encounter with the Honda. “It swoops off the banking and flashes down the long straight, breaking the radar beam at 242km/h. Sun glints off the glass canopy as it rushes towards us, cleaving the thick, still air of a midsummer afternoon. At once it is here and gone. Now just a winking red mirage a kilometre away, trailing a rich, bellowing wake. It is a sound to ignite the emotions; a cammy crescendo that rips and soars, triggering images of northern Italy, of racing engines and supercars.” Perfect. Not quite so pin-sharp was Scott’s prediction that Honda would sell every one of the 6000 units it planned to produce each year. Australia was earmarked for a 200-car allocation in 1991, initially pitching the NSX just below an entry-level 911. That prediction came to pass, the NSX selling at $159,900 versus $165,770 for a 1991 964 Carrera 2 coupe, a car 17kW down on the Honda. The difference between the two vehicles was stark, the Porsche leaning on its sporting heritage and Honda moving heaven and earth to create one of its own. The NSX’s genesis was the striking wedge that was the 1984 HP-X show car, with exterior styling by Pininfarina. It was from here that Honda’s vision diverged from the supercar norm where shortcomings were sold as character. Practicality and reliability were also factors Honda wanted from a supercar that would help it leverage its Formula 1-derived brand equity. It needed to be light, agile and impeccably engineered; something that would shift the datum on what buyers expected. It was called Project New Sports Experimental (NS-X), and an in-house design team, lead by Masahito Nakano with exterior input from Ken Okuyama, who would later go on to pen the Ferrari Enzo and Maserati Quattroporte, sketched a distinctive shape. With a transverse naturally aspirated six amidships, room for golf bags in the big boot, and panoramic sightlines from the two-seat cabin featuring a low cowl, the basic silhouette was that of a mid-engined supercar but with distinctly Japanese detailing. Much has been made of Ayrton Senna’s involvement with the development project. While F1 testing at Suzuka in February 1989, he hopped into a development car for a blat. He gave corrective feedback on a sticky shift action to second, wind noise, and braking instability at speed. “I’m not sure I can really give you appropriate advice on a massproduction car,” Senna said, with unusual diplomacy, “but I feel it’s a little fragile.” Chassis engineer Keinosuke Taki admitted as much at the September prototype drive. “I would like to add more stiffness to the suspension for higher stability,” he conceded. “While cornering I would like more support from the suspension.” Honda regrouped in Germany after beefing up the torsional rigidity of the chassis and tuning the suspension, re-enlisting Senna to pedal the near production-ready car around the Nürburgring, and finally earning the Brazilian’s tick of approval. After unveiling the final design at the 1989 Chicago auto show, the NSX went on sale in Japan in 1990. The NSX was the first production car to feature an all-aluminium body, saving nearly 200kg over the steel equivalent in the body alone. Aluminium suspension componentry shaved another 20kg of unsprung weight. It’s hard to overstate quite how revolutionary the body construction was, arriving fully five years before Audi’s celebrated aluminium A8. Three different grades of aluminium were used. The body panels are made of 6083 T4, Honda adopting an aircraft industry painting standard, with a chromate coating designed to chemically protect the aluminium bodywork. The chassis frame is mostly 5182 grade, with the sill being an extruded 6061 T6. The suspension arms are forged 6061 T6. Honda was so obsessed with weight saving that even the jack was built from aluminium. Pro tip: don’t grab the jack when the car’s hot because it sits right atop the exhaust. The ultimate in lightness was the NSX Type R, a JDM special introduced in 1992. This tipped the scales at just 1230kg and was sold for three years, with a mere 483 units leaving Tochigi. With carbon-kevlar Recaro