Today we want to take you to see an "old car" - the Acura NSX known as the "East Ying Ferrari"!
Thirty years after its birth, NSX is still famous and has become more and more valuable. I had heard that the store in Chengdu Sanhe Acura had the original NSX, or a convertible car with A T, and the driving team decided to find out.
First, let's briefly review the history of NSX -
After its debut at the 1989 Chicago Auto Show, the original NSX sports car sold fewer than 9,000 units in the U.S. market, and it was officially launched in 1990, when it was priced at $65,000 in the U.S. market, making it the most expensive civilian car in the history of the Japanese auto industry, even surpassing the all-hand-built Toyota Century.
In the early 1990s, when Japan's bubble economy had not really hit, the Japanese had so much money that there was no place to spend it, and it was in the era of the birth of the "JDM Four Kings" that the Japanese auto industry represented the highest level of the Japanese automobile industry at that time.
I think the reason why many fans appreciate the NSX's handling comes from the old video of the big god racing driver and critic Motoharu Kurosawa driving the NSX dancing on the Nürburgring Nordschleife. At the time, the NSX was also the first Japanese model to be developed for comprehensive testing at the Nürburgring in The Green Hell. The "gangsan" magic in the video has kept NSX on the verge of limits, which can be called the art in car videos, which has left a very deep impression.
In addition to the contribution of the Japanese car veteran god, the excellent handling performance of the NSX is also inseparable from the Brazilian car god Elton Senna - as the main driver of the Honda engine supplier team McLaren at that time, the three-time F1 world champion also gave many valuable opinions on the final stage of the NSX test at Suzuka Circuit, especially for the adjustment of the frame strength and suspension part, in fact, the strong handling performance has become the core competitiveness of the original NSX.
Many people say that the na1 of the early model is the most charming NSX, and the reason for this statement is inseparable from its "pop-up hidden headlights" design, like the Ferrari 348 and 355 of the same period, this pop-up hidden headlights represent the glorious years of the late 80s and early 90s, and sports cars from Japan can "kill cattle and horses".
And the NSX we're shooting today is also very good in terms of version and model. Fast forward to 1995, Honda launched the NSX's convertible version of the NSX in the Japanese market, the NSX-T, and the "T" literally means "Targa", which is actually the NSX's "semi-convertible roof detachable model", and it is sold in the form of an order. At the end of the Japanese bubble economy, Honda spared no effort to fully benchmark Ferrari, and the NSX-T's competitors also changed from Ferrari 348TS to 355GTS.
In the North American market, where acura car logos are hung, the NSX-T replaces the ordinary NSX as the only model on sale. We also know that the convertible model will have a certain sacrifice in the body strength for the blue sky and white clouds overhead, so NSX-T has targeted reinforcement of the body strength, mainly focusing on the four parts of A pillar, B pillar, side bottom and driver's seat floor, of course, this also makes the NSX-T body mass increase by 45kg.
In fact, at first Honda was hesitant to launch the NSX-T model, but it could not stand the North American market, especially the love of the Canadian people for convertibles, in order to take care of the preferences of North American consumers (to ensure the sales of NSX), Acura NSX-T was listed in 1995, and the price came to $81,000.
The roof of the NSX-T is removed and installed by manual operation and is placed inside the car in the same way as the Ferrari 355 GTS and Corvette C5. Thanks to the layout of the NSX-T horizontal mid-engine, the roof can be placed directly on the cover plate above the engine, and there is a special partition under the rear windshield to fix the roof, which will not affect the use space of the trunk, and open the open top without destroying the original elegant lines of the NSX. From this point of view, the NSX-T's extreme use of space shows that it is a convertible supercar that can meet daily transportation.
There are also many debut equipment on the NSX-T, such as the introduction of a 4AT automatic transmission to meet the needs of consumers in the North American market, and the price of the vehicle has risen from $81,000 to $84,500. However, from the final market reaction, the 5-speed manual transmission is the choice that can really match the NSX perfectly - the manual gear with the large displacement naturally inhales, think of the feeling of disconnecting the oil when the VTEC red line roars...
From the perspective of the entire interior style, NSX-T embarked on a completely different route from the NSX-R competitive style, of course, beige leather seats also have a good wrapping, the leather of the 90s is thick and delicate, the support of foam cotton to the human body is quite in place, and NSX-T used power seats in that era.
The leather steering wheel with airbags is also one of the differences between the NSX-T and the NSX-R, in addition to the leather wrapping with stitching throughout the center console, air conditioning and premium sound system are also very rare comfort features in the 90s supercar. And the NSX forward-leaning center console design, more ergonomic design, the convenience of operation is more convenient than the European and American supercar, even the later Lexus LFA also inherited this design concept to a considerable extent.
Even if this model of NSX does not have the same high status as the NSX-R in terms of performance, it does not prevent it from having a high financial value overseas - for example, last year, the Acura NSX-T produced in 2000 changed hands for $135,000.
Driver's Summary:
Launched in 1989 and discontinued in 2005, NSX doesn't have a long history, but it's brilliant enough! Among them, the original NSX benchmarked competitor Ferrari 348, in fact, experienced 15 years of evolution from 348 to 355/360, 430 three-generation models, you can see NSX's performance and concept of foresight and vision - in the famous car program BestMotoring, Tsuchiya Keiichi and a number of Japanese drivers driving NSX on the track to kill the european and American supercar brilliant deeds, is still the talk of fans.
Written/Photographed | John 117
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