Forget-Me-Not: The Acura NSX

The Acura (Honda) NSX is a car I keep forgetting about. I forget how light and quick they are. I space how timeless the design is, both inside and out, even though they were derided as boring on introduction. My mind slips away from the new 1991 NSX I drove, slowly and carefully, back from a body shop while I was working at an Acura dealership while in high school.

I also keep forgetting the damn things are now collectible.

Then some crack dealer posts a video on YouTube of an NSX rocking the Nürburgring in 7:56, and it all comes flooding back. These are still usable supercars, with Honda reliability and ergonomics. The NSX was an engineering marvel for its time, and it’s not too shabby by today’s standards. With time they have developed a soul – the defining factor for any covetable classic – but it’s a different kind of soul.

I don’t read or speak Japanese – hell, I can barely order sushi – but I sense this is not a normal NSX. It’s certainly a Type-R. It looks like they cherry-picked the suspension components and tires and then  aligned it with a micrometer. So what? Watching Motaharu Kurosawa (aka, Gan-san) hustle the NSX around the ‘Ring is like watching motorhead ballet.

All-wheel drive? Please. Forced-induction? For chumps and engineering school dropouts. Manu-moronic gearbox? Go back to your video games, Junior. This is art we’re talking about, all dizzying redline and lightness.

While having a camera pointed out the windshield is important, the videographer has also chosen to point one each at the gauge cluster and the pedals. I’m salivating over Kurosawa’s footwork and the fact on hard downshifts he’s mechanically over-revving the engine. Does it care? Not apparently. I could watch this video, and videos just like it, all day.

Have I? Not yet, but only because it’s about 10:00 AM here.

~ Jonathan