2016 Acura NSX
Dissected: Powertrain, Chassis, and More car and driver.Acura clearly wants to get this thing right. The original aluminum-intensive 1991 NSX was a stunner, a sunrise of engineering inspiration that chased away the darkness in the realm of sports cars and laid bare the multitude of sins being committed there. For the first time, |
2016 Acura NSX |
a large automaker that took quality seriously had applied itself to a segment rampant with all manner of pop-riveted, glued-up, hammered-down, and wiggy-wired silliness. In the presence of the $60,000 NSX, the self-important air-puffed mediocrities of the eroti-car industry scurried for cover. The owner of the first 2017 Acura NSX off the production line is still a mystery, and it will remain that way until the last week of January. That's because the car isn't already promised to anybody. Instead, it'll be heading to auction, and all the proceeds from the sale will go right to charity. That's much cooler than handing it off to some celebrity.
There was that coupe with the V-10 in its big schnoz screaming around the Nürburgring in 2008. Corporate canned it later that year, figuring out something that Toyota never did during development of the Lexus LFA: An interstellar unicorn that is seriously into six figures will do little for a brand that sells most of its vehicles for less than $50,000. The next attempt was a Porsche 911 fighter. It was a mid-transverse hybrid that plucked the parts bin for a version of Honda’s ubiquitous 3.5-liter V-6. Concept cars were shown, Jay Leno and Jerry Seinfeld made a Super Bowl ad for one of them, and a fully clothed prototype circled Mid-Ohio in August 2013 in front of thousands of IndyCar fans.Along with news of the auction, Acura finally unveiled its supercar's price tag. The 2017 NSX starts at $156,000 (directly converted, about £104,596 or AU$217,236), which excludes a staggeringly high $1,800 destination charge.Back to the benchmarked cars.
There was that coupe with the V-10 in its big schnoz screaming around the Nürburgring in 2008. Corporate canned it later that year, figuring out something that Toyota never did during development of the Lexus LFA: An interstellar unicorn that is seriously into six figures will do little for a brand that sells most of its vehicles for less than $50,000. The next attempt was a Porsche 911 fighter. It was a mid-transverse hybrid that plucked the parts bin for a version of Honda’s ubiquitous 3.5-liter V-6. Concept cars were shown, Jay Leno and Jerry Seinfeld made a Super Bowl ad for one of them, and a fully clothed prototype circled Mid-Ohio in August 2013 in front of thousands of IndyCar fans.Along with news of the auction, Acura finally unveiled its supercar's price tag. The 2017 NSX starts at $156,000 (directly converted, about £104,596 or AU$217,236), which excludes a staggeringly high $1,800 destination charge.Back to the benchmarked cars.