The 2021 Acura NSX is an excellent machine. And it looks better than ever with the new-for-2021 Long Beach Blue paint. This generation NSX will go down as an under-appreciated all-star of a machine, and I’m here to tell you why.
[Disclaimer: Acura tossed us the keys to this NSX and included a tank of fuel.]
About
The new NSX is an amazing looking/on-paper car. Is it 175% of the car a C8 is?
I find the C8 underwhelming, yet still an amazing deal at its price point. The NSX is better looking and more interesting to me… until the more aggressive C8 variants arrive.
You’re not wrong about the Corvette, but “underwhelming” is something it should never need to be called. It’s the worst criticism you can level at it, other than the fact that it no longer looks like a Corvette. Despite the public face Chevrolet may wear regarding the C8, I wholly believe at least some involved in its development have regrets about the direction they’ve taken with it.
Corvette’s modern niche was that it competed with the mid-engined Europeans using an old-school formula. It didn’t have to BEAT them, it just needed to hang with them using V8 power and a FR layout (which preserved the long-hood/short-deck styling). It was the all-American boy of the sports car world. Now it’s a wanna-be European supercar under even more pressure to look and play the part. I’m not saying it’s the wrong pool in which GM should be swimming, but I think they threw the Corvette into it without water wings.
My neighbor and good friend is an engineer at the Honda facility in which the new NSX is made, so she brings one home for the weekend from time to time. I’ve been fortunate to have the opportunity to look it over very closely and go for rides, but for legal reasons she won’t let me drive it (she won’t even let her husband drive it). Trust me, I’ve tried. She knows I’m a hoon (as is her husband) and values her job.
I agree, this car is under-appreciated. But I think back in the day, so was the original NSX. I think it’s the reliable Honda underpinnings that maybe create part of that impression, but I think it’s also the styling. To my eye, the NSX looks like a squashed, stretched, rear-engined Civic Type R. And IMO, that’s a bad thing. Similarly, looking back, the original NSX looks somewhat like a squashed, stretched, rear-engined Prelude. That, on the other hand, is a very good thing. But I wonder if it’s nostalgic retrospection that’s leaning on my preferences? I hold the OG NSX in much higher regard now than I did in the early 90s. Back then it was interesting, but it didn’t compete with Lambos and Ferraris on the posters hanging in the bedrooms of teenaged boys.
I think that the new NSX will find its deserved recognition… eventually. For now, I don’t drool over it. There are many “lesser” cars I’d much prefer to own– including an original NSX.
In my haste I wrote “rear-engined” instead of “mid-engined”, but essentially I meant engine behind rather than in front of the driver. I’m sure you guys know what I meant regardless.
Does it make any sort of sounds in “quiet mode”? My wife’s 2021 Accord Hybrid makes this sci-fi space choir sort of sound in EV mode that get louder as you go faster. My daughter wondered why her car sounded like Stranger Things.
I was thinking that there was some sort of requirement that EVs make a sound so people know they’re coming.
Leave a Reply