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Maybe the headline should read: "Honda reveals another facelifted NSX gimmick!"
Because they can call that concept what they want, but it's just a reskined NSX, and that's a shame.
I used to admire Honda for being ingeniously redundant; the parts bin cars, the interchangability of parts and the performance for the dollar and the general accessibilty of their product line to the average enthusiast, but with a little retrospect, some insight and a little maturity. I've come to realize that Honda's "ingenious redundancy" isn't really ingenious, it's just greedy.
They don't like to risk development costs, they don't like to risk failure and, most importantly, they refuse to risk losing money.
Every car they assemble now, is a flacid resking of a '73 civic -- nothings really changed, has it?
Before you lambast me with the tennents of the modern, corporate, manufacture ethos. I do understand that every manufacture is now, in one way or another, uses both vertical and parallel integration acorss it's manufacturing methods to cut costs, but Honda's apparent lack of spirit is insulting, and, ultimatly, the reason why their cars, are no longer revered, and unfotunatly why they'll never garner the allure that I once felt they deserved.
I loved the NSX, and still do, but I loved it because it was a risk, because it CHALLANGED the world, and won. Honda built the NSX to become a benchmark, and it did. I love the s2000 becuase it's purporse built, well enginereed, has strikingly good build quality, and offered a lot of novelty and nuance, but even it's edge has been dulled.
And, finally, this "HSC" is as close to being worth anything close to "supercar" as I am worthy of the title "superhuman." It's a bag of bones, wearing a neauvou tailored skin, and it'll be the most egregous stylistic , and mechanical flop, since the aztek.
Honda's simply borrowing elements of cars that have, and are, pushing the egde; the enzo, the 360 and the gallardo and murci, but it's accomplished nothing, other than "fashioning" their product, but creating nothing. It's look, and feel from the pictures, is that of a cheap and gawdy imitation; and come off like wearing a fuschia three piece velvet suit to a black tie affair. It's cheap, and it smacks of it. Loudly.
If honda want to play the supercar game, they need a car with a flat crank V10, offer both manual and F1 trannies, and cater to the enthusiast that wants the newest, most advanced and fatsest car for his/her dollar, but Honda's also got to beat the competition with pragmatisim and reliability -- like they did with the NSX in the early '90's.
Honda once was a pioneering effort, built upon the ethos of competition, ingenuity and evolution, but the legacy they are poised to leave is one of a dilluted spirit, and a passing apparition of a conglomerate corporate phantom.
Sochichiro Honda once said (parapharsed) "... competition improves the breed..." I wonder what he'd say today?
Maybe the headline should read: "Honda reveals another facelifted NSX gimmick!"
Because they can call that concept what they want, but it's just a reskined NSX, and that's a shame.
I used to admire Honda for being ingeniously redundant; the parts bin cars, the interchangability of parts and the performance for the dollar and the general accessibilty of their product line to the average enthusiast, but with a little retrospect, some insight and a little maturity. I've come to realize that Honda's "ingenious redundancy" isn't really ingenious, it's just greedy.
They don't like to risk development costs, they don't like to risk failure and, most importantly, they refuse to risk losing money.
Every car they assemble now, is a flacid resking of a '73 civic -- nothings really changed, has it?
Before you lambast me with the tennents of the modern, corporate, manufacture ethos. I do understand that every manufacture is now, in one way or another, uses both vertical and parallel integration acorss it's manufacturing methods to cut costs, but Honda's apparent lack of spirit is insulting, and, ultimatly, the reason why their cars, are no longer revered, and unfotunatly why they'll never garner the allure that I once felt they deserved.
I loved the NSX, and still do, but I loved it because it was a risk, because it CHALLANGED the world, and won. Honda built the NSX to become a benchmark, and it did. I love the s2000 becuase it's purporse built, well enginereed, has strikingly good build quality, and offered a lot of novelty and nuance, but even it's edge has been dulled.
And, finally, this "HSC" is as close to being worth anything close to "supercar" as I am worthy of the title "superhuman." It's a bag of bones, wearing a neauvou tailored skin, and it'll be the most egregous stylistic , and mechanical flop, since the aztek.
Honda's simply borrowing elements of cars that have, and are, pushing the egde; the enzo, the 360 and the gallardo and murci, but it's accomplished nothing, other than "fashioning" their product, but creating nothing. It's look, and feel from the pictures, is that of a cheap and gawdy imitation; and come off like wearing a fuschia three piece velvet suit to a black tie affair. It's cheap, and it smacks of it. Loudly.
If honda want to play the supercar game, they need a car with a flat crank V10, offer both manual and F1 trannies, and cater to the enthusiast that wants the newest, most advanced and fatsest car for his/her dollar, but Honda's also got to beat the competition with pragmatisim and reliability -- like they did with the NSX in the early '90's.
Honda once was a pioneering effort, built upon the ethos of competition, ingenuity and evolution, but the legacy they are poised to leave is one of a dilluted spirit, and a passing apparition of a conglomerate corporate phantom.
Sochichiro Honda once said (parapharsed) "... competition improves the breed..." I wonder what he'd say today?
