Honda NSX
Supercar Saturday EP1:
This is the first episode of the Supercar Saturday series, where I’ll be bringing the stories behind the most iconic supercars. What better car to start with other than the Honda NSX, Right? Let’s begin!
Most of you reading this won’t even know what in the world this car is. Well if i was to brief you of what the NSX is, “It’s a supercar for you!”. Yes you! No matter who you are, Honda NSX was made to be driven by each and everyone of you. A college going motorhead, a mid twenty IT professional, a successful businessman, anything and anyone that exists could drive it. It had the class of a ferrari, performance of the lamborghini, and the drivability of the city and the civic. Yes the civic, the baseline or to be precise the first prototype. Honda engineers in 1990 just buried every supercar that existed and gave birth to every legendary car you could think of in the pursuit of perfection.
A quick background check, in the 1990s, only the Italian manufacturers used to produce supercars. The word supercar was actually defined by the highly unreliable and unrealistic Italian cars that used to run on the roads. The very meaning sounds uninteresting, right? But this changed when the NSX jumped in.
THE JAPANESE SPORTS CAR THAT BROKE SUPERCARS.
1983- Honda used to make cheap, affordable and reliable cars behind which the Honda racing division made high performance engines for Formula 2 which won in ‘81 ‘83 ‘84.
One night engineers at the Honda Motor Company start tinkering with engine placements and drive types. They took a Honda city and slapped an engine on the back and took it out for a ride. It was sporty, dynamic and exciting. They were shocked!
At around the same time, Honda was prepping the Acura brand for the US. They needed a halo brand which proved that they were here to compete. They wanted to stand out from the other European and Japanese manufacturers. They could have made a sports car and still made a mark but they had their own game. A supercar, perfect to do a track day and drive back home in one piece.
“They wanted to take down Ferrari.”
The project was given to Shigeru Euhara. He planned to outperform the Ferrari 328 but the Honda way. They didn’t make difficult cars, they made reliable, respectable and easy to drive cars. One for everyone, every street, everywhere.
A Supercar with these abilities, boring? In 2023, maybe. But this was 1990 and Honda was making history. They were determined to change the world of supercars with graph paper. GRAPH PAPER!?
Euhara and his team plotted every supercar at that time on a graph taking their different attributes. This created a band which was then called the MILKY WAY (no not the one in space). Then they plotted the current F1 car, and then between the Milky way and the f1 car stood the NSX.
The engineers struggled to achieve the right weight which would fit the right amount of power. They could have just added more cylinders to get the right performance from the car like any other American manufacturer. But that’s not how Honda works. They had to achieve the right weight without changing the DNA of the car.
To achieve this, they had to do something unique, something Japanese. Aluminum! Aluminum monocoque was introduced into the prototype. This inspiration was from the fastest trains in Japan at that time. That results in a weight difference of about 90kg. Chassis CHECK!
With everything finalized they put in an accord engine in this. The best supercar that’s determined to change the world with a sedan engine. Ironic, right?
At the 1989 Chicago auto show, where everyone is presenting their cars, the head of Honda, Tadashi Kume fires up the Honda NSX backstage. BADASS! Everyone is stunned but Kume realizes the car doesn’t have V-TEC.
After a couple of months Honda comes up with an all new 3 liter, dual cam, V6 with the V-TEC! This changed the game for the NSX. There it was, ready to take down each and every sports car that existed.
This engine had all the fancy stuff, Titanium Camshafts, Variable valve Induction and what not. This enabled the NSX to put out 270HP with a 0–100 kph in under 6 seconds and a top speed of above 250 kph (its 1990!)
With everything done right, the NSX prototype was finalized and ready to test in 1989. Then comes Ayrton Senna, the F1 legend. With a couple laps around the Suzuka circuit, the engineers were eager to receive praise from the talent. Senna comes out of the car, with a little bit of thinking says, “The car seems fragile”. The Honda engineers were stunned!
After a 6 month rework on the chassis with the help of a supercomputer, the car was ready to hit the road. The chassis was made 50% stiffer and everything else was perfect indeed. With 400 patents filed, the NSX went out to dominate the supercar market and rightfully redefine the word “Supercar”. The pursuit of perfection drives the Honda motor company to create a legend that stays in our hearts.
The Honda NSX was a great hit in every market it was introduced. The car later went on to become the reason for Gordan Murray’s McLaren F1. A car which defined the word Hyper car. The first of its kind. I will be writing about that in the coming weeks.
I hope you liked this post. Hang on for the next one!
