Will the NSX be less successful because of Honda's F1 engine woes?

The Gen 1 was Crisp and clean, outside of the wheels, it was magnetic and presented much better in person. This one is as comely as a Vigor. Agree, unfortunately generic.

Imho, the relationship between sales and subpar performance in F1 (or any professional racing series) is negligible (with exceptions, perhaps Lancia sales increased during their halcyon days in the WRC...). Failures -ie Porsche powered Arrows, Alfas in general, Subaru powered Colonis, Mercs kiting down the Mulsanne - had zero impact on 911,GTV6, BRAT or CLK 350 buyers.

 

Also, look at what was the competition when the first NSX came out: the Ferrari 348 and Porsche 964/Turbo.

Lamborghini didn't have anything, no Audi R8, BMW i8, Mercedes AMG GT or McLarens either.

 

Did you watch the video? The celebrated female head designer was like - "the car has four wheels, and it drives on the road" LOL its just beyond me why Acura picked this woman to promote this new NSX. The first NSX had Ayrton Senna associated with the fine tuning and final development of the car.

 

"Cat in a hat" = comic gold! Very funny! LMAO

 

And they still struggled to sell 70 cars PA in the uk...

 

We're an SUV society. If it wasn't for the Cayenne, Porsche may not have survived. Maserati brings out the Levante and it's instantly it's best seller. Same with Jaguar and it's F-pace. The success of these once unimaginable "trucks" in these famous marques showroom is new millennium phenomenon. Even Lamborghini has one on the way

Back to Honda and Acura. They sell a ton of Pilots, Odysseys, MDXs, and RDXs. They are profitable. Their dealers are doing well. They want to make a statement about performance and hybrids in one wild, exotic car. So they do. It's like the age-old question of why does a dog lick his balls? Because he can.

Hence the new NSX, heavily laden with state of the art technology and blindingly fast and sexy. It is a magnet in the showroom. In the meantime, Honda/Acura sell tons of bread and butter vehicles to happy customers, many of which see this amazing halo car that is related to theirs and built in the USA like theirs.

So we have exotic/luxury car manufacturers like Porsche, Jaguar, Bentley and Lamborghini building SUVs while a more mass manufacturer like Honda building an exotic. Life is good.

Folks, don't go off the deep end with conclusions here. Honda AND the Acura division are doing fine. In the meantime, go drive an NSX. IT'S COOL!

Don't ask me to explain Honda's problems in F1. I can't. One thing I will tell is that they are not giving up. They fully intend to improve and eventually prevail.

 

The NSX is a monumental own goal by Honda. To sell, it needed to be unique and special. It needed to obliterate the opposition in looks and performance in order to sell because it has no heritage or racing history to paper over any specification shortcomings. Instead it's over weight, over priced, ugly and completely obscure. The fact that it isn't selling is simply the market voting with it's pockets. Just like the F1 engine, Honda needs to shut down the NSX program and give it up.

 

...or rather: move it back to Japan to rediscover it's roots and purpose!


You can see that Honda could not figure out what they were trying to do with this car.


They needed to make a mid engine GTr fighter. What they did is lose to everything the put against it.

Too expensive
Too complicated
Not fast enough
Too many gimmicks
Bland styling

WAY TOO HEAVY! Its 4000 lbs for heaven's sake!

 

^^^ Totally agree. A GTR fighter would have been good positioning and would have appealed to a good market. But trying to create a cheap Porsche 918 was totally the wrong strategy.

 

When you talk about Honda not doing well in F1 now: Look back at Toyota's disaster in F1! they never won a race and past year lost Lemans at the last 10 minutes.

 

But they made pole positions and were competitive in many races...not comparable at all.

 

Its unsuccesful because it sucks in almost every way.
maybe had they been sucesful in F1 it would have sold better, none of which would have changed the fact that its a pretty terrible car, lame to drive and looks not to have been designed at all.

Detroit in the 80s, a overworught design, that seeks to sell through conning the stupid.

 

Probably, but not necessary it's worldwide. For example, over here, Mercedes is doing very well from the beginning. Even though they are world champions now, they do not do any advertising locally here to shout about their success in F1.

In fact, the only local sponsor here who is really excited about Merc's success in F1 is Petronas. They go all out, makes you think that Petronas are actually Mercedes.

Point is, how many individuals out there actually care about a manufacturer's performance in F1 before making a decision to buy a car? Honda sucks badly at the moment, but their cars are flying off the shelf here. Toyota can't even finish Le Mans, but most middle class people drives a Toyota here.

Every corner, there's a Mercedes and an Audi. I do understand your stance, but in reality, probably 1-2 out of 10 buyers are really concerned or make a decision to buy a particular car based on F1 success.