I've seen only one NSX in my life. The engine was dismantled at Honda's dealer in Bogotá. All mechanics were gathered around it: the titanium (ehem... did you say something about rods, M3?) connecting rods have been compensated by the most ingenious crankshaft you can imagine. We said something in this forum, in some thread, about how this kind of rods can bend easily a less resistant steel crankshaft.
I can hardly describe the emotion you feel when you see how most "typical" failures you expect from a car have been handled. Everybody (dealer mechanichs, for heaven's sake!) around that car felt something that cannot be described to someone that wasn't there, or by someone that doesn't understand how we appreciate cars that last, down here, in my country. Cars are a big investment for any "brownie" like us, if you get my message.
I came to my house, after seeing it, to try to learn something about this car. I was amazed, astounded, thrilled, moved, and I'm no car-man: I use cars, they don't use me. I'm happy with any car, from a Trabant to a bulldozer, I've driven things that would shame the poors in Calcutta
. I don't care what others think about what I drive, I only think on how the car would feel if it was alive. I treat cars the way I treat horses, believe me. All I care is that they are "happy"...
All cars should be constructed like it. You can only appreciate it when dismantled. Starting by the eternal aluminium body, btw. The way this car stows the detachable roof speaks volumes about how they put ingenuity to work. You should see how the transmission works and how is handled by the driver, man.
Of course, a BMW is "la créme de la créme" for a sporty European car. If I had to pick one, well, I'd pick both.
But an NSX is a work of ... no, not art. It's a work of love. It represents the kind of things you expect from a master of its trade. It has what a Toyota has and a GM hasn't: durability AND a certain humility german cars lack.
Many things are not made to sell the car: you have the impression they are made because somebody have thought about cars for its entire life and finally got a chance to express himself. Only someone who has given the same amount of time to ponder how a thing should be made will understand what Honda, Bobby Rahal and Ayrton Senna (Rahal put his grain of sand, check the "american", for me, automatic transmission) put into it. And it's the most bold statement a car company can make: it's not like the Ferraris I've seen. The guy that designed this car did not give a damn about recognition. Nobody has copied it: it represents too much work (and perhaps too little gain for the company, I imagine). This work speaks by itself, but in whispers and only to those that can hear it: poet engineers.
For its time, titanium rods were advanced thinking.
