2016 Honda NSX – Preview Drive – Honda’s Seismic Shock Supercar
The release of Star Wars Episode VII and the ordination of Saint Malcolm of Turnbull both feel like they’ve been a long time coming, but they are nothing compared to the arrival of the new and epoch-shifting Honda NSX, which feels like it’s been imminent since John Howard was in power.
It came as something of a seismic shock to actually drive the damn thing this week, a surprise Honda pulled on us while we were visiting its proving grounds in Tochigi, Japan, to try out some slightly more mundane vehicles with hydrogen engines and anodyne designs.
The NSX is anything but anodyne and promises to revolutionise the supercar world, just as its predecessor did when it was launched in 1990, back when the only sports car Porsche made was a 911.
This new super-hybrid Honda claims to be quicker to 100km/h than the modern Turbo 911, a 3.2-second car, as well as what it considers its other obvious competitors: the Audi R8 V10 and Ferrari 458 (they’re not claiming to match the new 488 GTB, however, which tells us it won’t quite drop under 3.0 seconds), but they won’t tell us by how much.
Heading out on to the track’s high-banked, high-speed bowl, we were given a speed limit - electronically enforced by the car’s software, sadly - of 180km/h, which seemed quite reasonable, except that we’d hit it inside the first corner, and before we’d had time to draw a first breath.
The number that should be really impressive on this car is its zero to 200km/h time, which I’m tipping to be as low as eight seconds.
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