http://rednsx.org/articles/evo200301.html
Excerpts from the Evo Car of the Year article from the Jan, 2003 issue, about the Honda NSX-R.
Honda NSX-R
'This is the rawest, most focussed NSX. The improved power to weight ratio is immediately obvious. The 0-60 time tumbles to 4.4sec and there's a newfound urgency to the power delivery. The howl as the V6 closes in on the red line is just intoxicating'
One more stop for fuel, then the final dash to the beach. I'm quite happy to stay in the Lotus, but then Dickie flashes the cool sliver of titanium that is the key to the NSX, and seconds later I'm wedging my once snakelike hips into its deep-sided race-style Recaros. No time to dwell on the details -- just get comfy, turn the key and go. But boy, what a fierce noise, and what a direct, mechanical-feeling gearchange, and whoa! what heavy steering, and I haven't even left the station forecourt yet.
It's very quickly clear that this is what Hilary Briss would call 'special stuff'. A regular NSX is a great thing, but this, as they say, is hardcore. You're suddenly very aware you've strapped yourself into a machine. The ride's stiff, the unassisted steering requires big inputs from the forearms, at least until you're up to speed, and the power delivery is inspirational. You just can't believe this is the same output as the Nissan, and the way it builds and builds while all the time the engine note swells, flattens and eventually lets rip with a full-blooded howl is quite intoxicating. All too soon we've reached the photo location, but I promise myself a real, long drive in the NSX tomorrow. I believe we have another serious contender.
Compromise, not a word that features in the NSX-R's job description. A quick glance at the spec sheet shows just how seriously Honda's engineers took this project. New vents and a rear diffuser help promote downforce. The weight loss programme included new carbon-fibre panels and spoilers, lighter wheels, and binning just about everything that didn't impact on the driving experience, including the stereo, the central locking and the underseal. The net result was to trim 140 kilos from the kerb weight, now 1270kg. Pretty significant when your horsepower is topped at 276bhp (though some Japanese horses feel friskier than others...).
To wring the most from the 3.2-litre quad-cam V6, the engineers opted for high-precision balancing of not only the pistons and conrods but also the crankshaft assembly, all the better to help it rev. There's a drive-by-wire throttle, and a lower final drive ratio, both designed to sharpen response. Chassis changes include stiffer springs and dampers, harder bushes, stiffer anti-roll bars, grooved and vented discs with a new pad specification, and bespoke asymmetric Bidgestone Potenzas, 215/40 front, 255/40 rear, on 17in BBS alloys.
Inside you get carbonfibre-bodied Recaros that clamp you in place yet still feel comfortable after an hour's driving, a smaller Momo wheel than the standard car's, and a tianium ball on the stubbiest gearstick you've ever seen, so small it only just pokes out of the nylon mesh gaiter. Guide it with precision and a firm hand, and it's one of the most rewarding shifts you've ever experienced.
Sort of sums up what the NSX-R is all about. It's not an easy car -- the suspension feels rigid at low speeds, the steering heavy -- but the faster you go, the more it flows and the more it communicates. There's a constant stream of messages coming through the wheel as the tyres turn, grip, slither, patter, grip again... Of all the cars here, only the Elise comes close. The same directness is there in the throttle response, and there's a real touch of savagery to the way the engine pulls now, getting an extra kick at 4000rpm and then sustaining the rush all the way to 8000rpm. By which time the V6's urgent voice has compressed from nape-prickling how to teeth-tingling blare. I have a terrific drive in late-afternoon. We're moving camp tonight, pitching up a the Groes Inn, near Conwy, and I chase the Elise all the way from Anglesey circuit down into Snowdonia. I would be feeling even better were it not for the fact that Vivian in the Cooper S is all over my natty carbonfibre wing. Obviously I will tell him that the Elise was holding me up.
As with the Lotus, the thrills in the NSX come not from sheer speed but from the two-way relationship between car and driver, and working at it. It's not the fastest car here -- though it feels a good chunk quicker than the standard NSX -- but no other is quite so alive with sensations.
Far and away the greatest driver's cars of 2002 are the C4S and the NSX-R. Many of us spent ages agonising over scoring the two cars, and in the end there was just 0.6 of a percentage point in it. Simple fact: the purest driver's car won.
'The irony,' say Vivian, 'is that the NSX started life as the most contrived, compromised supercar -- for all the right reasons -- and it's been turned into the hardest, purest, most involving there is.'
Barker, like many of us, was initially suspicious of the ultra-stiff suspension, the tyres like hand-cut slicks and the heavy, apparently slow-acting steering, but like all of us he found that once up to speed, it all worked quite beautifully.
'Once you're into it, cracking along, there's a wonderful feedback and workable progression. It even works in the wet. Honda R&D have worked some magic here.' And the NSX's brakes are stupendous -- an absolute model of feel, progression and power. As Jethro puts it, the NSX-R is everything we look for in a car.
'It doesn't pamper you, doesn't do anything for you,' adds Fraser. 'It's a car you have to drive. And you get out what you put in, which can only be a good thing.'
'The noise,' says Meaden, 'is a no-nonsense, busy kind of sound -- how a racecar sounds if you drive one around the paddock without your crash helmet on. The gearshift is similarly hard-edged, that palm-filling allow knob nibbles its way around the gate with an instinctive, wristy precision. And then you drive it, and the whole thing feels so at one, so absorbing you just want to keep going until you meet the horizon. It feels fast too, not bruisingly rapid in the Maranello or SL55 sense -- it's too lithe and efficient to need such unsettling thump -- but aggressive, needle-sharp and just as quick as it needs to be.'
The ride is terrible over short sharp bumps: rumble strips jiggle bits of you which you'd rather they didn't. But the last word goes to Hayman, who drove it up to Wales: 'I shouldn't really like the NSX,' he says. 'I sat in it for six hours on my way up here -- including motorways, traffic jams, no sound deadening and no radio. It was intense but it was, and is, utterly superb. Anyone who's still not sure what we're talking about when we bang on about evoness should just drive this car.'
It is the only supercar that could look remotely cool in white. It is this year's blockbuster, the Lord of the Wings. And best news of all, it looks likely that Honda will bring a limited number to the UK in 2003. So now you know what we'd all like next Christmas.
Code:
[B]THE RESULTS[/B]
1st Honda NSX-R 93.5
2nd Porsche 911 C4S 92.9
3rd Ferrari 575M 'Fiorano' 88.6
4th Mercedes SL55 AMG 86.9
5th Lotus Elise 111S 85.1
6th Mini Cooper S 84.9
7th Mitsubishi Evo VII FQ-300 82.7
8th Nissan 350Z 81.8
9th Renault Sport Clio Cup 81.3
10th Jaguar XKR-R 79.7
11th Subaru Impreza STi PPP 78.4
12th Ford Focus RS 76.0
Track Attack!
All of which leaves the NSX-R and C4S. The Porsche's balance, traction and poise are sublime (although it can understeer in the wet), the brakes firm and tireless. For such a well-judged, road-biased car it makes a great track car. But even the C4S bows to the NSX-R, as Barker explains.
'Even in the wet you can work the NSX-R hard. The front scrubs wide first, as it should, and if you then squeeze a bit more power in, the tail arcs out gently, and is easily caught and gathered up again. You don't expect this sort of poise with such a stiff, mid-engined car on such dry-weather-biased rubber. In the dry, it's simply stunning. It's so easy to drive it over the limit yet feel you're not over-driving it. There's so much grip, so much progression, so little feeling that there's a weighty mid-mounted engine trying to dictate proceedings. You rarely want for any more power, a sure sign that it's a superbly well-judged dynamic package.'
Honda v Zonda
Fabulous the NSX-R may be, but how would it compare with last year's eCOTY winner, the Pagani Zonda C12S? Let's find out
Heads swivel so fast as our two-car convoy rumbles by that I'm sure if we retraced the route we'd find a dozen or so people clutching their necks. And that young lad at the last T-junction would surely be brushing gravel from his dropped jaw.
This is the one and only Honda NSX-R in the UK, which makes it rarer than the Pagani Zonda C12S it's pursuing, but there's no question that the epicentre of the shockwave is the Zonda. A couple of weeks earlier few people apart from you, dear evo reader would have been able to positively identify the dramatic silver wedge snuffling along these Northamptonshire roads, but the rest of the world is catching on. An appearance on Top Gear TV, with Jezza clearly wowed by its ability, has put the name of last year's evo Car of the Year on the lips of a much broader audience.
'Zonda' will now be on many more lottery wish lists, though at £300,000 it'll be on considerably fewer shopping lists. At £64,000, the NSX-R is hardly a snip, but for a fifth of the price of the Pagani it offers the same thing -- one of the most incrdible mid-engined -- driving experiences in the world. Which is why we felt compelled to bring these two eCOTY champions together, drive them back-to-back, and find out which of them offers the most evoness.
The Zonda won't be five times better than the Honda, of course, in just the same way that the Honda isn't three times better than, say, an MR2. It's the law of diminishing returns. Beyond a certain price the tangible improvement in sound quality of a hi-fi is no longer proportional to the amount you pay, though the quality of the engineering that goes into it, the sound that comes out, the volume it can achieve, and its exclusiveness, do increase.
On paper, the Zonda is twice the car the Honda is -- double the number of cylinders, exactly double the horsepower and twice the power-to-weight ratio. The latter is a clue to where some of the money has been spent, for the Zonda's 1270kg kerb weight is virtually identical to that of the largely aluminium-built and physically smaller Honda's. Carbonfibre is the key and, although it isn't cheap, when it's used extensively the benefits are spectacular. And nosing around the Zonda's nooks and crannies reveals that the finish everywhere is to the same fabulous standard.
The NSX-R offers stunning performance -- 0-60 in around 4.4sec, almost 170mph flat-out -- but the Zonda is on another plane, hitting the benchmark in well under four seconds and topping 200mph. Still, on the road there's only so much performance you can use. That's why the NSX-R is looming large in my mirrors as I thread the Zonda along the bumpy, twisty B-roads close to evo HQ. It feels very broad of beam, quite heavy too, yet whatever the revs, in the lower gears the response from the 7-litre Merc V12 is instant and massive.
If you press hard, it's savage. When the shortest of straights opens up, the Zonda is gone, slammed forward with a frankly terrifying force and a guttural howl that's seething with malicious intent. Don't ever wind down the windows and fire the Zonda into a tunnel hard in second gear (like I did) -- the noise will scare you silly.
Traction control is a recent addition to the standard spec of the Zonda, and at times it's pretty busy on these roads. It would be even busier if the ride was as uncompromisingly stiff as the NSX-R's but the Zonda's suppleness is one of the first things you notice. It doesn't come at the expense of superb wheel control and sharp, feelsome steering, which must be a reflection of the solidity of the carbon platform.
Not surprisingly, the cockpit of the Honda looks pretty ordinary straight after the riot of shapes and materials under the Zonda's fighter jet-style canopy roof. The NSX-R feels great, though; the seats are among the best of any road car I've tried and the gearshift unequivocally the best of any mid-engined I've ever driven. Once you're up to speed, it's steering is outstanding, too, as are the brakes. In short, wherever car and driver interface, the NSX is inspired. Except for the ride, which around town is as resilient as the Zonda's is compliant, but town is the last place you'd go if you owned an NSX-R.
Even after the C12S the Honda feels exciting, which is quite an achievement. Of course it's not as sensationally accelerative but the whole car has a balance, a cohesion that makes it a totally absorbing and thrilling drive. Because it's smaller and feels lighter, you can use more of its ability more of the time, and as we descovered on eCOTY, it's sensational on a track. The Zonda's handy but not as joyously exploitable on a circuit. For sheer usable evoness, the Honda wins.
But if you should win the Lottery, there's no reason why you should feel the need to justify having both a C12S and an NSX-R in your garage. They are, after all, the finest mid-engined cars in production.
Caption: Zonda meets Honda; 555bhp 7.3-litre V12 plays 276bhp 3.2-litre V6. On paper it's an unequal contest, but on the road they're closer than you'd think. Both cars provide moments of total exhilleration.
