03-02-2004, 04:53 PM
KPWSerpiente Wrote:Quote:Dude if Honda came out with a new R, everyone would buy it
There is not a single Honda automobile on the market (as of now, the last 50 years, or coming out soon) I would want to own, from a performance standpoint.
NSX - Congrats. For that money I could buy a Viper and be making some real power without sacrficing looks, the bling factor, or too much handling.
S2000 - Whoopee! A Honda Sports car. Amazing! And to actually get it to make some serious power all I have to do is tear apart the engine and build it back up, maybe get a little FI action going on. This is a very nice car to drive...not going to outperform much though.
Any Civic/Accord/Prelude/Integra/RSX. Nothing says performance like N/A, I4 or FF.
Please note I am talking about strictly being a performance platform. You can make any car competitive, but a naturally aspirated 4 cylinder front wheel drive car is at a huge disadvantage against the cars being put out by other manufacturers. The real reason Honda is popular is because most of the cars it makes are cost effective, (cheap to buy, cheap to insure, cheap to operate).
-T
It depends on how you define performance. If you are talking about drag racing then yes none of the Hondas are good for that. If you are talking about on a road course then its a different story. The Type-R won the World Challenge Touring championship 6 years in a row, the NSX won JGTC twice, World Challenge GT and Le Mans GT2 once. There are plenty of other series around the world I could quote but you get the point. Hondas are not made for drag racing the same way BMW's are not made for drag racing.
As for the NSX, it is horribly long in tooth and really it is only out of love that Honda still makes it. When it was in its first 5 years of life it was among the world's best sportscars. It could go toe to toe with the likes of the Ferrari 348 and Porsche 911 yet still be as reliable as any other Honda. But more than the raw performance the NSX was more about balance. This is why Gordon Murray used the NSX as one of the design models for the F1 rather than the crude and unrefined Viper.
So yeah, now the NSX is outgunned by the Viper, Z06, 996 Turbo, 360, and others, and really there's no excuse for that. However, we'll see how far Honda is willing to go with the next generation which should bow sometime in 05 or so.
So yeah you can buy a Viper for the bling factor and looks and that's your choice. But when it comes down to it few will say it was/is among the world's finest because it is a rather brutish muscle car with little attention to detail. The Viper is like using a sledge hammer to push in a thumbtack. However, if monster power is your goal then there is no better starting point than a Viper. For my money I can appreciate the Viper and I would love the opportunity to take a Comp Coupe out on track. But if it comes to a street car I'd rather not have my legs burned by improperly route side pipes or deal every day or worry about hitting something while looking over my 8 foot phallic hood.
With the S2000, there is no other roadster on the market until you get to the Boxster S that can run with it on a road course, hands down. On the strip maybe the Z4 3.0 could keep up. But really, a roadster is naturally not an all out performance car because not having a top is a huge structural compromise. To overcome this compromise the car has to be smaller (like the Miata), heavier to make the car more rigid (like the S2000), or be light and not rigid (like the British roadsters of yore). When put against other performance vehicles for the money the S2000 does well against stuff like the 350Z, RX-8, and Mustang but pretty much everything in that price range has to bow down to the Evo and STi. Does it mean the S2000 sucks? Of course not.
Its totally fine if your performance car preferences are different than mine, great! Diversity is a cool thing. But don't be another Honda basher just because some people like Hondas and you do not. Just because you have a relatively narrow view of what a performance is doesn't mean you must disparage what is outside of that view.