{"id":28654,"date":"2012-10-18T17:42:15","date_gmt":"2012-10-18T16:42:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.influx.co.uk\/wordpress\/?p=28654"},"modified":"2025-03-27T12:21:33","modified_gmt":"2025-03-27T12:21:33","slug":"honda-nsx-miyagi-wrought-in-steel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.adrianflux.co.uk\/influx\/cars\/honda-nsx-miyagi-wrought-in-steel\/","title":{"rendered":"Honda NSX: Mr Miyagi wrought in steel"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I was 23 Honda loaned me an NSX for a week.<\/p>\n

To this supercar novice it felt like Mr Miyagi: fearsomely capable, but patient and benign. I drove it and drove it and drove it, and it hard-wired into my head what Honda was all about: Swiss-watch engineering, truck-like toughness and democratic pricing.<\/p>\n

I can still feel the wrist-snap gear change – still maybe the best I’ve ever used – and hear the howl of the VTEC V6<\/a> as it came on cam. It fried my tiny mind and pretty much decided me on a career as a car writer, in which I’ve probably been a little misty-eyed about Honda as a result.<\/p>\n

I still look at NSXs in the classified ads on a weekly basis.<\/p>\n

\"Honda<\/a><\/figure>\n

But since the demise of the old NSX there hasn’t been a car at the top of the Honda range that accomplishes the same thing: not just impress neophyte motoring hacks, but represent to everyone what Honda is about.<\/p>\n

We’ve had to look to the firm’s robotics <\/a>and aerospace arms for the almost reckless creativity and innovation its founder Soichiro<\/a> encouraged.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve missed it.<\/p>\n

\"Blue<\/a><\/figure>\n

\u201cThe NSX is what made me fall in love with Honda 22 years ago,\u201d Jon Ikeda<\/a>, chief designer at Honda\u2019s US sub-brand Acura told me at the Detroit Auto Show. \u201cI wanted to work at a company that could build something like that. And not to have something that represents us is an issue.\u201d<\/p>\n

So Jon got the gig of designing one of the newer NSX<\/a> models \u2013 a hybrid \u2013 that went on sale around 2015. \u201cThis has been a long time coming for me,\u201d he said. Me too. But although his concept looks mega, the new NSX can\u2019t be the first Japanese supercar again; can\u2019t have quite the same impact as the original.<\/p>\n

That first NSX will remain the poster boy for anyone, like me, who loves that country and its cars.<\/p>\n

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