With its latest version of the hand-crafted NSX coupe, Honda has taken a great sports car and made it better.
However, building a limited production, advanced specification sports car largely by hand, inevitably means high production costs and consequently the Honda NSX experience isn't cheap.
The NSX range starts at $206,790 for the manual coupe (tested) and $210,790 for the SportShift automatic. Prices for the NSX-T (removable roof panel) model are $216,790 for the manual and $220,790 for the auto.
Naturally at these prices, equipment levels are comprehensive. Standard items include dual airbags, traction control, anti-lock brakes, all leather interior trim, a high quality sound system with multi-stacker CD player, power operated seats, automatic climate control air conditioning, cruise control, power windows, mirrors and boot release, central locking, alarm and immobiliser.
Built mostly from aluminium, the spectacularly-styled NSX displays high quality finish standards in its paintwork, panel fit and interior trim. It was surprising therefore, to see some untidy welding joints at chassis members in the test car's engine bay.
With the cabin devoted to just two people, occupants have heaps of leg room. Head room could be a problem though, for anyone who's longer-than-average in the upper body. The seats are beautifully contoured to provide excellent support and good comfort.
As expected, ride comfort is on the firm side, but not unduly so for a sports car shod with ultra low-profile (40/45 series) tyres.
Luggage space is restricted to a rear compartment that won't cope with much more than just a couple of soft bags. Space under the front bonnet is taken up by the spare wheel, battery and other ancillaries.
Parking the NSX isn't so easy; it has a big turning circle and a large bulky tail, and vision to the rear is only fair. Vision can also be distorted through some sections of the curved rear glass.
The new 3.2 litre engine is just sensational. Not only does it deliver exceptional performance from 2,000 rpm right through to 8,000 rpm, it's wonderfully responsive and always eager to perform. The sound it emits when accelerated hard is pure music to an enthusiast's ears.
The six speed gearbox has allowed Honda to lower the first five ratios for even better low speed response and although sixth gear is now higher at 0.77:1, the engine has enough power for the car to pull happily from as low as 80 km/h in sixth gear, if desired. For such a high performance car, the NSX is capable of achieving quite low fuel consumption figures when cruising out on the open road.
Handling and road holding are of an exceptionally high order, so high in fact, that it's very hard to know what happens at the limit. It would take a very experienced race driver to explore the limits of this car and it's nice to know that in normal on-road driving the margins of security are way above what is needed to be safe.
It's the same story with the brakes. In a word, they are superb, with tremendously powerful emergency stopping and a complete absence from fade under hard use. Normal braking requires only a light pedal effort and the brakes are progressive in their action.
Summary
Apart from one or two minor annoyances, the main points against the NSX are its price, the fact that you're never going to be able to leave it parked unattended in the street, and the difficulty of finding somewhere to legally enjoy its potential.
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