HONDA NSX: THE FIRST TIME

You never forget your first time.

Since my first drive in a Honda NSX 15 years ago I’ve driven maybe half a dozen others: earlier 3.0-litre cars; the raw, empty, fabulous NSX-R; the post-2002 cars that lost the pop-up lights.

But that week in an early 3.2, black with the manual ‘box and the targa-top, will remain one of my seminal motoring experiences.

I remember every detail.

I remember the excitement every time I walked up to it, keys in hand, knowing this thing was mine to get into and drive. I remember the proper supercar looks; the pop-up lamps, the waist-high roofline, the wedgy, cab-forward stance and that lovely line where the tail sinks under the subtle spoiler.
But it didn’t scare like a supercar: Honda forgot to make it a pain in the ass to drive in town, or snappy and unpredictable at the limit or in the wet like other mid-engined supercars of the era, and particularly Ferraris.
Instead the visibility was great and the drivetrain about as challenging to drive smoothly as a Civic’s at town speeds.

It wouldn’t make you look stupid trying to park or nurse it through traffic. But when you were alone on an empty road: oh, dear Lord, it was just electrifying as it howled towards that 8000rpm redline, every gearchange snapping home with machined, oiled precision despite the forces at work, and your brain a little freer to enjoy it all because you knew that the car was working with you, and that if you made a slight misjudgement and had to back off mid-bend it wouldn’t throw you off.

And even though this wasn’t my car, there was a satisfaction in knowing that unlike its rivals, there was probably no limit to the number of times you could nail that redline: it felt as reliable and unburstable as a Civic too, and you never feared a shower of sparks from the back end and a pricey engine rebuild. Which makes a used one all the more appealing.
[via influx.co.uk]

November 5, 2014 0

Ayrton Senna’s Williams FW16 – Renault RS6 3.5 V10

(Ayrton Senna’s) Williams FW16 – Renault RS6 3.5 V10

Ayrton Senna Renault FW16 — Williams FW16 – Renault RS6 3.5 V10

1994 San Marino Grand Prix, Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari (Imola)
© Williams Grand Prix Engineering Ltd. / ESPN

A few more epic moments from Senna’s racing career:

October 9, 2014 1

CONCEPT CORNER: MUGEN NSX RR

Mugen is amongst the aristocracy of tuning companies.

As the brainchild of Hirotoshi Honda (Soichiro’s son), it has always had a pure bloodline of producing tuned road cars and race vehicles straight out of the Honda factory. And when Honda unveiled this Honda NSX Mugen RR concept at the 2008 Tokyo Auto Salon, anyone who loves the brand was aghast.

We’re suckers for louvres…

Just look at it. It takes all the gobsmackingly futuristic elements of Honda’s Senna-developed Ferrari slayer and just goes large.

For aero oomph is features a widened front, multi-grooved rear diffuser and an adjustable rear wing. But the power unit is where it really got interesting. It came with a modified 3.2L V6 that was mounted in the more traditional longtitudal situation, whereas the original of course had been tranversely mounted. The revert to the trad here allowed the inclusion of a more conventional and barking exhaust system, and would of course had made the weight distribution different.

and bulbous air intakes…

The donor NSX, with that long, low profile and huge rear over hang was not back happy like a 911 – rather in long, sweepy corners it drifts smoothly and controllably. We reckon the longitudal mount would make that controlled drift a little more sketchy.

On the positive side, the re-mount would have allowed for better power transfer to the rear wheels as well as that more conventionally efficient exhaust outlet.

We’d kill for a chance to test THAT particular theory.

We’re suckers for louvres…

and bulbous air intakes…

and fattened wings and red calipers and….

September 13, 2014 0

HONDA NSX: TAO OF TECH

HONDA NSX: THE TAO OF TECH
In a project as big and complex as the development of a new supercar it’s hard to isolate the influence of an individual. As time passes the Honda NSX seems to be seen more Ayrton Senna’s supercar than Honda’s.

In truth, the NSX didn’t occupy much of Ayrton’s time and it’s unlikely that its engineers made it fifty per cent stiffer purely on his say-so after his first drive in a prototype between F1 pre-season tests at Suzuka in February ’89.

But he did drive it, and gave his opinion, and drove it again to assess the all-aluminium double-wishbone suspension settings once the design had been frozen.

It was the only road car he had any input into, and he ‘owned’ at least two examples, of which one, with his personal plate, remains in family ownership in Brazil.

And for Honda and Senna fans, that’s enough: the car is the embodiment of the relationship between the utterly un-Japanese Brazilian, and the essentially Japanese corporation with whose engines he won world championships, and which loved him for it.

And Honda’s engineers didn’t really need the help anyway.

Their 3.0-litre, quad-cam transverse V6 with variable valve timing making 270bhp at 7100rpm was hailed, from launch, as ‘one of the world’s finest engines’.

The NSX benchmarked the Ferrari 348 – not a particularly tough target – and ended up the benchmark for the brilliant F355, so it plainly caused Maranello to raise its game.

Younger readers might not remember the years when a Honda regularly, naturally featured in car magazine group-tests alongside Ferraris and Porsches, and beat them. But in its day, the NSX wasn’t just the competition; in many respects, it was the standard.

September 10, 2014 0

Honda and F1

Honda’s F1 history dates back to the early sixties when the company looked to translate its motorcycling success onto four wheels.

Honda tried to strike a deal with Lotus and Colin Chapman, which had won the world championship with Jim Clark in 1963 but when Chapman decided against it, the Japanese pressed ahead with their own car and engine. The Honda RA271E, with a load-bearing transversely-mounted V12, made its debut at Nurburgring in 1964 with young American Ronnie Bucknum driving.

Starting a trend that would continue, F1 Hondas were prodigiously powerful if sometimes heavy. The RA272 gave around 230bhp, estimated to be 10% more than its rivals, and allowed ex-Ferrari driver Richie Ginther to win the company’s 11th race, the 1965 Mexican GP, the last race for the 1.5-litre F1 category.

The new 3-litre V12-engined car ran second on its debut in ’66 and the following year Honda elected to run a single car for John Surtees — the only man to win world championships on two wheels and four – who had fallen out with Ferrari. Lola’s Eric Broadley designed the RA301 chassis, dubbed the Hondola, which first raced in the ’67 Italian GP at Monza. Surtees battled with Jim Clark and Jack Brabham and when one ran out of fuel and the other ran wide, the car won its first GP having led the one and only lap it would ever lead!

In 1968 there was pressure to run an air-cooled V12 to promote air-cooled road cars and the RA302, using lightweight magnesium parts, was built. On testing it, Surtees declared it dangerous and refused to race it. Honda France brought in Jo Schlesser to drive it in the French GP after Johnny Servoz-Gavin turned it down. The unfortunate Schlesser died in a horrible fireball accident when he crashed on the second lap of the last F1 race to be run at Rouen. Surtees finished second in the RA301. Surtees again refused to race the 302 at Monza and shortly afterwards Honda announced a ‘temporary withdrawal’ from F1.

That lasted until 1983, when Honda returned as an engine supplier with the new Spirit team, which graduated from F2 amid F1’s turbo era. The RA163E engine showed enough promise for Williams to do a deal to run Hondas the following year. Keke Rosberg found on/off turbo power delivery and a flexing chassis a tricky combination, but took the Williams-Honda to victory in Dallas.

At the end of 1985, Rosberg and Nigel Mansell won the last three grands prix in Williams-Hondas. The team was dominant in ’86 as Mansell and Nelson Piquet won nine races and the constructors championship but lost out in the drivers championship to Alain Prost when Mansell suffered a spectacular tyre blow-out 18 laps from the end of the season finale in Adelaide.

The team won 11 of 16 races in ’87, with Piquet claiming his third drivers’ title. Honda, however, switched allegiance to McLaren in ’88 as the RA168 engine gave Ayrton Senna his first world title in a year that saw the Brazilian and team mate Prost win 15 of 16 races for McLaren-Honda.

It would have been a clean sweep had not Senna tripped over a backmarking Williams-Judd a handful if laps before the end of the Italian GP. In a great irony, the Williams was driven by Jo Schlesser’s nephew Jean Louis who, standing in for Mansell, who had chicken pox, was making his first F1 start on the eve of his 40th birthday…

In an era of continuing McLaren domination Prost (89) and Senna (90) took world titles with V10 Honda power, then Senna repeated the success and took his third and final crown in ’91 with the V12 Honda RA121E-engined McLaren MP4-6. At the end of ’92, however, with the active suspension Williams-Renault now dominant, Honda withdrew once again.

They were due to return with a chassis being tested by Jos Verstappen and developed by Harvey Postlethwaite in ’99 but the project was stillborn and Postlethwaite died shortly afterwards from a heart attack at a Barcelona test.

Again as engine suppliers only, Honda returned with British American Racing and Jordan, eventually buying out BAR in 04/5 and returning solely as the Honda Racing F1 Team in ’06. Jenson Button gave them a first win in nearly 40 years with the RA806 in a mixed-condition Hungarian GP, but the going was tough.

It got tougher still in 07-8 with no sign of a competitive car. Ross Brawn had been recruited, however, and early in a hopeless 08 season, the decision was taken to concentrate on next year’s car. During that time a Japanese aerodynamicist came up with the double diffuser that was key to the ’09 season. Suddenly though, in a shock announcement in December 08, with the worldwide recession taking hold, Honda pulled the plug. Button went on to win six of the first seven ‘09 races en route to the championship. Honda reputedly injected over £90m running budget to avoid having to close down the Brackley factory. The car though, ran as a Brawn and carried a Mercedes engine. If only they’d known…

September 10, 2014 0

THE ULTIMATE IN PHATNESS?

We’re not sure exactly what the racer in this picture is, but man alive, does it not want to make you go racing?

There’s something about the exposed mechanicity of the diff and the tubes and the pipes and the roll bar, crossed with the fat slicks and the way the shadoes of the sun fall on the grass – that makes this our favourite race car perspective.

If anyone can ident this car for for us, we would be truly, madly, deeply thankful.

September 10, 2014 0

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