re
you want a Flat crank V10, it seems like what you want is more along the lines of GT car. So many people on this board are fans of "adding lightness." For Honda to give that to us straight from the factory would be more than a prayer answered. As you can always add power... but making a car lighter can get very price prohibitive fast. My point is that it wouldn't be in the Honda spirit to give us a V10. Look at it this way, if they give us a car that does 0-60 in 4.2 and the 1/4 in 12.0 then we'll be satisfied. If not then yes I agree that your complaints are not unjustified.
I certainly do not want a GT car.
I think some of you are all too focused on my comments regarding the powerplant; maybe I'm finally too old to write clearly. At any rate, I'll try to rephrase my opinion as to come off less like a whino, and more like an ardent enthusiast.
In the early 90's, before the NSX broke cover, honda was more or less percieved to be the manufacture of economical hatchbacks, "sporty" coupes, well engineered motorcycles (rc 45, anyone?) and had a given amount of clout due to their F1 success with McLaren; however, when the NSX broke, it was a revolution -- it recreated honda, set a benchmark and defined a new automotive paradigm (not to mention that you could hear the collective automotive world utter a resounding "HOLY SHIT!! Where'd that thing come from???") And that's why we're all here, isn't it? Becuase the car was an instant, soughtafter, classic -- despit dwindling interest and sales.
If any of you have read "driving ambition" (story of the mclaren f1) you'll know that gordan murray owned an nsx, used it as test mule for early engines (b/c the shifter/tranny had such excellent feel) and infused much of the NSX's feel (i.e., shifter, steering, cockpit interior, driver position and driver centric design) into the mclarens design. Now, not every car will be an F1, but it was a testament to the esteem that the NSX was born with, bar none.
And, that's what I want from honda this time around. I want to be left slackjawed like I was with my first NSX, my 99 prelude , the interga type r's and s2000. I want a revolution, and there's not tangible reason to be offered, no honda's behalf, to not fulfill that request. IMO, of course.
Further, and if I may, I'd like to make a parallel b/w the arguments of continuing the "growth" of the NSX as a concept, rather than an evolution, and an unearthing of a new breed. The parallel I'd like to make is that with the ferrari 360; based upon the lineage of 3xx cars (i.e., 246 dino, 308, 328, 348 and 355) the 360 was entirely new, but with a bloodline. It's design was new, unrelated to the previous cars. It's motor reworked, almost new from the bottom up. Everything was an evolution; had you not known, you'd never have guessed that the 360 was birthed from the 3xx bloodline -- that's what I'd like honda to do now, build something so novel, so ingenious that it'll garner immediate reverence from it's peers (again, like the NSX).
I've been driving, tearing apart and tracking honda's a long time, and i've driven everything from the old 73 cvcc's to the nsx and some of hondas motorcycles, and I'm a proud enthusiast, but I simply want to be acknowledged as an enthusiast again; I don't want honda to do what's pragmatic; what's commercially viable; etc.
I want them to define a new paradigm.
