I already do not have a warm fuzzy feeling about this car, hopefully Im wrong. Compare the two development cycles for the two major debuts in Detroit - Ford GT and NSX. Ford GT was developed in 18 months with only 10 execs knowing about it. The NSX was pretty much 10 years, 3 powertrain changes, delays, delays, and more delays. Two very stark design timelines. NSX so far just looks like another project that management got too involved in, spoiled, and delayed. You have two cars with similar engine architectures, 3.5 V6TT, yet one makes 600+ hp and the other is probably 500 or less since its 550+ combined. What gives? Surely Honda/Acura designers and engineers are capable. NSX for sure will be heavier because of hybrid components. Some of the greatest engineering designs happen when management stays out of it and you lock the nerds and geeks in a room until they figure it out. Management involved too much in projects always seems to screw it up, very telling from Honda/Acuras product line in the last 10 years. However I fear this is what happened to the NSX from what I can see so far. Again hopefully Im wrong.

 

First reports of NSX came in 2011 so car was not in the development for 10 years. Sure there were stalls on the immediate successor and V10 car but the current car was probably in development no more than 5 years even though somebody would say 3 and I think that's the official wording.

However you are right, new NSX is a joint venture of Honda USA, HPD and Honda Japan so yes lots of saying in there.

The actual road to birth is quite healthy one, its a complicated setup. Congrats to Ford for putting up a GT within a year but remember this is the initial debut, there will be testing and then the production version debut. If they can manage to do that all within a year then kudos to them. I forgot what's release time frame for the car.

 

GT is going to be a 2017 model I believe. NSX deliveries by end of this year

 

Ford has had the 3.5L V6 ecoboost platform for some time now. The NSX engine is an all-new 75 degree V6 that was developed a very short while ago. Building an engine from scratch to accommodate a new chassis takes time. They could have modified the J35 and gotten the engine out of the way, but it's wasn't special enough. Building a turbocharged hybrid supercar is an unfamiliar territory for Honda. I'm okay with them taking a couple years to work out the kinks if the car delivers.

 

good article to read about Ford GT development:
http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/201...guide-ford-gt/

In short, it is not developed as normal production vehicle.

And besides, NSX could not have been made even year ago, Honda did not have this hybrid tech back then... this is their brand new stuff.

 

I'm so happy about the general negativity towards the new NSX. This points out at another EPIC car, a few years after the LFA, from the land of the rising sun.

NSX FTW.

 

http://www.carscoops.com/2015/01/wha...honda-nsx.html

 

The original car/powertrain changes were not delays, they were totally scrapping their direction and going in a new direction. The new NSX has not been developed for 10 years, just half that. A new NSX went from a transverse mid engine NA V6 update to the original NSX to going with a totally different type of car which likely would not have carried the NSX name with a front engined V10 rwd car. That was killed which I think was a big mistake and a few years later they restarted the mid engine NSX but with a new hybrid system, the only delay was switching from a highly modified J series to a new DOHC V6 and longitudinal mounting but they are still on schedule for a 2015 release.

With this new NSX, upper management did not have that much say in and were actually kept out of a lot of the development. Originally it was only going to have a modified J series, transverse mounting, use the same exact hybrid system in the RLX, target the V8 Audi R8, and was only rumored to make do with around 450hp total output with the focus on being "environmentally responsible" hence good gas mileage at the expense of performance. Over the past 6 years or so under their CEO Ito, Honda has been very anti performance/power with the focus on being "green" and cutting costs, a car like the new NSX was totally against the grain of current Honda management.

Ted Klaus and engineers fought against that lower powered direction saying they needed to target the Ferrari 458 like the original targeted the Ferrari 328 and 348 and it needed to be more unique and a worthy supercar exotic successor. They fought for the new engine, higher performance, and longitudinal mounting against management that did not want to spend the extra money or build a high horsepower car. They kept management pretty far away from this car which was not too difficult considering it is mostly engineered in the US now.

We don't know what the displacement for the NSX will be, that was never confirmed, it may very well be a smaller higher revving 3 liter powerplant nor do we know final power output which could be much higher then 550hp. They only said over or 550+hp and Honda counts hybrid hp differently then most manufactures, the RLX hybrid really has 429hp combined hp but Honda only rates it at what can be used all at one time at 377hp which most manufactures don't do so the NSX rating may be well below what it is really offering compared to other hybrid cars.

The GT looks to be a very low volume specialty model like the last which means it will be priced much higher then the NSX and will likely again have a lot of issues, it will be engineered differently then the NSX and I doubt it will be able to do anything the new NSX can't do while the NSX will be engineered to be the more reliable, much cheaper to maintain, and a better daily driver as well as high performance car.

 

maybe NSX should have been here in some other form 3-4 years ago, but it is now here and it looks great.

 

NSX is the supercar to have. Supra stands no chance against, of course the Supra will be more affordable.

 

thank you to USA Today, lexus got some free exposure

 

When are we going to get a mid engine sports car from Lexus? ... hmmm. ....

 

I wonder who will be more upset : Acura or Lexus

 

 

lol that's a good one!