I just e-mailed a letter to David Morley via the magazine, I wonder if they will publish it?
Dear Mr David Morley,
I do not know you. In all probability you may be a very nice chap. Indeed you are such a nice chap that someone pays you good money to write about your opinions in car magazines. But the mark of a really nice chap is to acknowledge that you are not always right, and indeed you may occasionally be wrong.
Case in point, your NSX feature to which you are entitled to offer your opinion [it is your article after all]. Great, you gave your opinion and even got some facts right, but you actually got some facts wrong as Andrew Cheong pointed out, perhaps a little pointedly.
But to dismiss the NSX as a “fast Civic” belittles your credibility even more than it does the NSX’s. Honda as an enthusiast’s marque may be dead here in Australia but it is no reason to push your prejudices about Honda onto readers who rely on you opinion for an understanding of the cars they may know little about. How can I ever contemplate reading one of your articles without thinking how much your prejudices colour said article?
Yes I’m a happy NSX owner, but don’t take my word for it. Your emminant colleague [well I think he is emminant] Peter Robinson in July’s Wheel Magazine rates the NSX as #17 in his top 50 Greatest Cars of all time. Porsche’s 911 993 rated #18 and Ferrari’s F355 #16.
Fast Civic indeed.
Do yourself a favour and buy the magazine and read the article. In it you will read what Gordon Murray [yes THE Gordon Murray] is quoted as saying-
“The moment I drove the NSX, all the benchmark cars –Ferrari, Porsche, Lamborghini – I had been using as references in the development of my car vanished from my mind…the NSX’s ride quality and handling would become our new design target.” Obviously he was benchmarking a “supercar” was he not? After all he was developing the McLaren F1!
Fast Civic indeed.
The British magazine Performance Car [which later morphed into Evo Magazine] rated the NSX as Performance Car of the Year in 1991 and 1994, the year in which it beat the 911 to the title.
Fast Civic indeed.
Does your opinion as a “motoring journalist” hold more sway than Richard S. Chang of the New York Times?
http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/05/02/some-supercar-thoughts/
The NSX very obviously did not “float your boat” but that does not deny it is a seminal car in “supercar” history. Oh and the NSX actually does “float my boat” assuming I have understood what you meant by that. I race cars for a hobby, win class championships at a state and Australian level, even set lap records, which qualifies me to comment on fast cars, no?
Laurie D’Alessio
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As for their article on the NSX returns, I wouldn't pay ANY attention - they have obviously just trolled the internet to pick up tit bits without any real understanding of where Honda is coming from. Heck not even Honda knows where it is coming from anymore :biggrin: