When Motor Trend ranked the NSX #8 in their 2016 best driver's car article, 5 out of the 7 cars they liked better cost less than the NSX (and in some cases less than a Corvette).
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What would have made the new NSX sell better?
- Thread starter chrisn
- Start date
Which cars have base prices less than NSX that people here mention that they would prefer to own? The 570S and R8V10+ both cost more, and the 911 Turbo is about the same (more if comparably spec'ed).
A Miata (or Cayman) is a better "Driver's Car," than the NSX, but people aren't cross-shopping the two.
A Miata (or Cayman) is a better "Driver's Car," than the NSX, but people aren't cross-shopping the two.
What struck me when I read that article was their pulling out the Fiat due to its power compared to the rest was a question of: is having lots of HP mandatory for being a great driver's car? How much more interesting could that article have been if they defined "driving" as "generally sticking within the speed limit and staying out of the 'hey look at that a**hole over there doing something that looks kinda dangerous' mode. Then the parallel to this thread struck me - could the gen 2 have fared better with a different #1 emphasis other than "optimization for way-beyond-the-speed limit driving?"
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They got to do something about that butt ugly interior. Too many bright works and contrast. It looks like it belongs to an American soccer mom's SUV or a pimpmobile.
Steve
The prototype interior is so much better.
Steve
The prototype interior is so much better.
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It could have been "different," but not necessarily better. I think most "clean sheet" designs for "halo" cars start with a blank white board and the discussion topic: "How can we build a unique product that supports our brand?" The audience for the new NSX was not owners of the old NSX, it was "people who might buy a new NSX and/or another Acura/Honda product."
I think it would be awesome if someone takes on the challenge of building a better Miata/BRZ/Cayman/Gen 1 NSX, but I don't think it was an error that Acura did not go down that path.
Go to the configurator. You don't need to choose those colors. But, more broadly, the interior isn't super special or luxurious. But I think it's fine.
WOWIE!! I have not seen those prototype interior pics. Much much better. I could even do w/o the CF and it'll still be better. I like those prototype seats - more svelte.
Harry summed up my feelings about the NSX almost to the tee
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The white interior is nice.
IMO the first gen NSX interior was exceptionally nice ( truly, for my taste, one of the nicest interior design ever made - seats, center console - everything ... )
A tough act to beat ...
IMO the first gen NSX interior was exceptionally nice ( truly, for my taste, one of the nicest interior design ever made - seats, center console - everything ... )
A tough act to beat ...
My 2014 MDX has been an absolute POS. The NSX steering wheel controls, interior switches, and infotainment is all standard Acura stuff... which is reasonable when you're trying to save money. However, I think the bean counters and suppliers have tried to squeeze out all the profit margin they can to the point where it's unreliable. For example, my infotainment touchscreen just died out of warranty, power seats that creak/groan (My wife is only 95 lbs and I'm 150 so we're not stressing them), low quality display, exterior door handles corroding and leaving streaks down the door sides, cheap interior plastics, transmission needed replaced, noisy VCM, engine spark knock that techs confirm but can't do anything about (don't think Honda got their first DI engine right), etc. Go on the MDX forums and there is all kinds of problems. To be fair, all cars do have issues, but we never expected so many on a "reliable" $60k Honda.
If Toyota makes a $175k sportscar I would consider it, but sorry, not Honda's new NSX.
Edit - The concept NSX had a nice interior. The production one is ugly. Sorry.
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Funny, we had a 2014 MDX until last month. Other than the terrible "Dual screen" Infotainment system design, we had zero problems. My wife loved it and it never let us down. I'm pretty sure we just changed the oil per the dash indicator. When the "NSX-style" Hybrid version came out a few months ago, we test drove it and, mainly because they had not updated the infotainment system, decided not to upgrade.
Sorry about your bad luck, but I've had a remarkably consistent and positive history with Honda products for 30+ years.
After 10 months and 11K miles, I've been very happy with the quality and reliability of the new NSX (apart from an issue with the brakes due to heavy track use).
Which other "clean sheet" supercars have been as issue-free in their first year in the wild? I can't think of any. I don't think you'll find better quality out there from anyone.
Sorry about your bad luck, but I've had a remarkably consistent and positive history with Honda products for 30+ years.
After 10 months and 11K miles, I've been very happy with the quality and reliability of the new NSX (apart from an issue with the brakes due to heavy track use).
Which other "clean sheet" supercars have been as issue-free in their first year in the wild? I can't think of any. I don't think you'll find better quality out there from anyone.
fastaussie
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the first R8...
But if different it could have also been better, of course in a different way or, in a more successful way. That blank white board question you posed is where Acura got it backwards imo. There is no denying Acura's brand has been waning for almost a decade now. They've lost their edge in their designs, their interiors, and as a result lost significant shopper relevance, etc. So at this juncture instead of asking, "How can we build a unique product that supports our brand," they should have asked, "How can we build a unique product that our brand can support"...and that, they did not do. That's what real pioneers do, work within tangible resources...not idealogical ones. The current price point they made the car at exceeded their brand’s effectual magnitude which is coming down to be to the buyers’ benefit here real soon. If the target market really are the 1% as mentioned somewhere on here (income, not people) with the amount sold to date (≈550) the NSX has then penetrated <0.001% of this segments early adopters. So essentially the "1%" with their significant disposable income have demonstrated <.001% interest in the car for over a year (approximated using Forbes estimate of how many people are the 1%). That means the remaining 99+% who have interest and wanna buy are soon going to have their opportunity. But now inflation becomes a relevant factor because the “99% norms” have to live within budgets while the “exceptional 1%” do not. Imo Acura did not consider the upper-reaching end of their brands limits and might have just thought if we build it, they’ll buy it…and the dealerships bought into this line of thinking and then started paying for it.
This market of "people who might buy a new NSX and/or another Acura/Honda product" is exactly where they lose touch. At a price point of $200,000, the first part..."people who might buy a new NSX" is basically code for "people who make upwards of $500,000 (mentioned somewhere else here), so reworded properly:
*The audience for the new $200,000 NSX is not owners of the old NSX, but people who make ≈$450,000+ annually.
Reasonable analysis should have shown the difficulty that any company with a current brand-cap max-price point of $80,000 is going to face selling a product at $200,000 to this particular market segment*. And then the second part that these people "might buy another Acura/Honda product" is again out of touch. A mass majority of this niche audience* does not cross-shop Honda's for their daily-drivers nor mommy-mobiles...that's just pure wishful thinking on Acura's part when brand new Velars can be bought for $50K. The market makes you have to earn your way into the prestige market segment and you can't do it in one move, instead it can take years and years and years of consistent good moves. This is the equivalent of an artist who can sell paintings fairly consistently for $25,000 and then all of a sudden demanding $65,000 for their next one. "It's better though" they insist, or "it took me years to paint this" or "I've spent years to develop this style" or technique or whatever, but the fact remains that not only does price increase have to be done incrementally, it has to be done with real-time market reinforcement to validate the asking price.
The bottom line is the target audience* does not think that the Acura product is as great as Acura thinks its Acura product is...that's the disconnect. So a reasonable conclusion would have been to build a car for $125,000 (a 1.5x's increase vs. 2.5x's in terms of branding support dollars) and it wouldn't necessarily even mean a "lesser" car, but definitely a different one and certainly a different path would've been needed to arrive there. And we know they've got the brainpower to have done it. This way they could have at least, with complete warranted confidence, known their brand could actually support "that" vs. the "if we just build it, they* will buy it" mindset. And ultimately began trudging their way back up the steep hill of gaining market honor and affection via a modest "win" in hopes of achieving many, many more "wins" to eventually warrant an even higher price tag AND having them* eat it up.
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I for one love the Acura brand and really want(ed) to see Acura become a successful company again…not just building one great car every now-and-then in between decades. Comments that infer they should have made a totally different car at least from my perspective don't come from wanting to undo the past meaning the car that just happened, that's a done deal and here to stay. But more from just viewing this whole debacle that started in 2012 from a sustainable business model standpoint. Did they ever set out to determine what their brand's max limit that it can support was? If so, did they build to that or beyond?...because typically when you do you usually incur loss. The only way to save the car's value at this moment in time is to halt production and heavily limit the amount of cars you make. Acura seems out of touch in recent years not knowing what they are and are not capable of selling...and it's all based on understanding brand perception. This is very different from a company knowing what it is capable and not capable of building. Acura is pretty excellent at the building/making part, but not so much in the branding part, and especially in doing it within a capable price point that will make it so, oh I don't know, so that there aren't 250 vehicles for sale on Autotrader within a year.
No matter what this car is going to be very rare….like SUPER rare, because it's not being supported by its intended market. And because the intended market is not buying, it will become more affordable because what they built is going to need to get liquidated at some point due to the lack of tangible brand provision. The result, ...an incredible bargain for a highly reliable, high performance vehicle for anyone in or out of that 1% who don't care about brand affluence, don't care that it doesn't look like the Gen 1, and simply just love a truly great machine that is exceptionally engineered but hard to understand. And in that capacity it is very much like the Gen 1 – only those who own one will ever truly appreciate its greatness and consider it a sleeper success.
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Not sure I followed all your logic, but I'm loving mine. Going to Sears Point / Sonoma in the morning for a track day and expect to have a great time!
fastaussie
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logic followed. in short, Acura has their head well up their arse...
I love the brand Honda/Acura. Honda is certainly successful, Acura is not. Everyone in this thread have great points. For me if I were the one making calls for Acura, I would use Audi as business model. The TLX Aspec is cool, but 290ish HP is unreal if not embarrassing, why can't they do 400hp or 450hp for TLX Aspec? Look at Civic Type R, isn't it already sold out within days? People are lining up to pay 30~50% over MSRP. However, no car in history priced above $150k moved massive volume. Even GTR with ground breaking performance and low price back in the days did not move massive volume. +/- a few hundred cars not gonna move a needle for Honda. Sales is not their intended goal for NSX.
NSX is super exciting to me, but other Acura products are not. NSX's price point is too high for such a weak brand. Their intention is got to be just have a halo car and show the world they can if they want, just like Ford. However, it is not a limited production run like Ford GT.
One can argue that Ford has no problem selling Ford GT, but it only has annual production run of 250, Ford certainly did not intend to sell Ford GT and bring in massive profit for their shareholders ($151 billion in revenue last year) The entire 4 year run of 1000 units doesn't add much to top or bottom line for a company of their scale.
Acura can learn something from Rolex and Hermes.
It is quiet, efficient, effortless in very aspect. Acceleration is not everything, but not having enough is a serious issue for a car in this category. No other car under a $1 million USD besides Tesla P100D with ludicurous mode can accelerate as fast and as gracefully like NSX without looking like an ass.
NSX is super exciting to me, but other Acura products are not. NSX's price point is too high for such a weak brand. Their intention is got to be just have a halo car and show the world they can if they want, just like Ford. However, it is not a limited production run like Ford GT.
One can argue that Ford has no problem selling Ford GT, but it only has annual production run of 250, Ford certainly did not intend to sell Ford GT and bring in massive profit for their shareholders ($151 billion in revenue last year) The entire 4 year run of 1000 units doesn't add much to top or bottom line for a company of their scale.
Acura can learn something from Rolex and Hermes.
Your point is the one of many reasons why gen 2 nsx is arguably my favorite car of all time to this point. HP is important but not everything. Gen 2 nsx can do dangerous things while staying out of the 'hey look at that a**hole over there doing something that looks kinda dangerous' mode.
It is quiet, efficient, effortless in very aspect. Acceleration is not everything, but not having enough is a serious issue for a car in this category. No other car under a $1 million USD besides Tesla P100D with ludicurous mode can accelerate as fast and as gracefully like NSX without looking like an ass.
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fastaussie
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that's a rather interesting view point. can you please elaborate?
"It is quiet, efficient, effortless in very aspect."
fastaussie
Suspended
like a 911 Turbo? quiet, equally as efficient, effortless, and even more brutal...
I had 09 and 13 Black Edition. To me GTR is amazing car for its time and still is amazing today.
It feels heavy, bulky, uncomfortable, slower, not effortless like NSX. Definitely nowhere near as efficient. 911 Turbo mention is indeed valid however.
Brutal is not what Honda/Acura intended to do. It just happen to do brutal in most gracefully fashion possible. My 570S is quicker than 911 Turbo S in quarter mile. But not close in initial step. NSX destroys 570S on that first step, 570S will zoom past by, but by that time, already illegal speed.
During previous SCA monthly NSX meet, there were quite a few muscle cars including mustangs, STI, Hellcats showing off making a ton of noise driving by. One thing they all have in common is looking like they are trying so hard while acceleration appears to be nothing but impressive. This is my point, NSX can accelerate gracefully at amazing pace, can't do that in a Huracan, R8 V10+, M4/M3. I don't even go 50% throttle in my LP550-2 with stock exhaust. Because it will look like I am trying to show off even when I am just minding my own business.
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Even with the configurator, I could only get a black interior still with those hideous bling trims sticking out like a sore thumb.
For some reason, I could not find too many black interiors but constantly found that beige/white interiors.
What were they thinking when the design team finalized the design? NSXs are supposed to be functional and elegant. Even the grandfather's SUV has less ostentatious interior.
Is it just so hard that someone look at the old interior and see how unpretentious that was?
The 2017 "NSX" is not an NSX in spirit or execution. It is bloated, and overly adorned. I would like one just because it is a Honda. For now my Audi would be the beater next to the real NSX.
Steve
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Funny that most reviewers have complained that the interior is too boring and too honda-like, not too bling as you suggest.
In any case, I don't think the competition is any more understated.
It is "boring" and "Honda-like" because the interior looks nothing sporty and it is really like an Acura SUV's interior belonging to MDX and RDX with useless trims. For example, the Italia's interior is not the best out there but at least it looks like a sports car's interior.
Steve
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all i see is a bunch of random shapes mixed together with that random growth sticking out in the center.
the steering wheels is amazing tho.
the steering wheels is amazing tho.
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