30 Years Later: Does The Acura NSX Outshine the Ferrari 355? — Carmudgeon w/ Cammisa & DTS — Ep. 224

Hello.

Hello, and welcome.

This is an episode of the-

Also-

This is Motor Week 99.

Hello and welcome is what Jason Fenske says.

But this is neither Engineering Explained,

nor Motor Week.

This is a week of motoring.

This is the Carmudgen Show, which is driven by Haggerty.

Haggerty is a insurance company,

it's a lifestyle brand, it's all these sort of things.

Haggerty is driven by drivers.

For drivers.

We're doing it.

Yeah, we drove this morning.

Drive two cars.

We drove both the NSX and the Ferrari 355.

So therefore, the Haggerty is driven by drivers,

for drivers of yellow mid-engined 90s sports cars,

or 2000s.

Even though this one is a 2002.

They can't say we'll blur out the headlights.

They won't be able to tell.

It was the sensor strips.

But for the, after talking about these cars,

in not necessarily the most positive terms ever,

we're gonna make a decision here

about which one we like better and-

How they compare?

How they compare.

This is basically a comparison test.

And that's Jason Camisa.

Compared to Derek Tom Hyde and Scott.

Please do not compare us in the comments.

Although-

Jason is better at clapping.

They don't know this.

Other than you-

You should clap on air for us.

Pathetic.

Thank you.

I made it myself.

All right, we're back from the jingle.

The jingle.

Yes.

That's a yellow thing.

It's a car.

It's a Honda.

I love those Yaris ads from 20 years ago.

It's a car.

You don't remember those Toyota Yaris ads

where he's like, it's a car.

He's like, do you go places sometimes

and leave places other times?

If so, you need a car.

Toyota Yaris, it's a car.

Like that was their literal ad

because the car was so basic

that they were like, it comes in blue, green, other blue.

Yellow, no.

There's like this whole series of very clever ads.

I love these ads, no?

I didn't know them.

Because it's like such a basic car, you know?

It's like a white background

and all there is is the car.

And it's a nerdy dude

who's owning the fact that the Toyota Yaris is a car

and not much more.

This is just recalling the DDB Volkswagen ads

from the 1950s and 60s we talked about a couple weeks ago.

With a little cheekier.

Little cheeky, little self-deprecating.

Yeah, sure.

Fair enough, okay.

That is a Honda behind us,

but it is not a basic transportation device.

Correct.

Is it an acidic one?

In this color, it's a little bit acidic.

The color of lemons.

I guess lemons would be acidic.

Yeah, we're off on a fucking weird tangent today.

Honda NSX, did you notice it's bad as a Honda?

I did now.

I drove it, I didn't look at the badge.

Yeah, it's an accurate NSX,

but it's got a Honda badge on it.

And it's a late car without the poppy up E headlights.

Correct.

So, a little bit on nomenclature.

You're familiar with the terminology NA1 and NA2.

NA1 and NA2.

Both in terms of a Miata and an NSX.

Well, NA1, yeah, I guess they unofficially used it.

NA2 is the one.

They use that term unofficially, yeah.

Okay, so NA1 does not in fact refer exclusively

to early car, well, yes it does.

But NA2 does not refer exclusively to late cars.

There were late NA1s.

NA1 refers to three liters,

NA2 refers to 3.2 liters.

And the automatics remained three liters

throughout the duration of production.

So, actually NA1 and NA2,

that nomenclature apparently is not accurate,

be used by most people.

But anyway, so now we have to say facelift 3.2

versus non-facelift 3.2 versus three liters.

So, little background on NSX history.

There were initially three liter cars with five speeds.

Then an automatic was optional.

It was 270 horsepower for the manual,

250 or something for the automatic.

Not that anyone's counting or cares.

And then the 3.2 liter came out for 97,

but they still looked the same with the pop-up headlights.

And that ran from 97 to 01.

3.2 liters were all six speeds if there were manuals.

Well, they were all manuals

because the three liters were all automatic with three liters.

So, and then in 02 they did this facelift,

which was reshaping the fascia

and losing the pop-up headlights

and the back lights are different.

And the coefficient of drag went from 0.32 to 0.3

when they did the 0.30, yes.

When they did the facelift.

Did they have to measure the initial, the NA,

well, hold on, the pre-facelift car with the pop-ups up?

Is that what?

I assume not.

Oh, okay.

It's still a pretty car.

Yes, these are polarizing.

Most people prefer the early cars aesthetically.

I do, but it's not a super strong preference.

Some people are like really definitive

about like absolutely never consider even looking at

or you might hurt yourself a late car.

I actually like the late car aesthetically, all right.

It's fine.

I mean, I think the pop-ups win.

But yeah, no, I've always thought this was a,

I've never said much nice about NSX,

but I've always said it's very pretty.

I quite like the engine.

You don't like V6s.

Depends on the V6.

I don't, okay.

So we're gonna do,

we both have just driven these back to back

with unfortunately can't be here today, a 355.

Ferrari 355.

And for both of us,

we have both driven the three liter five speed NSXs,

but have never driven a 3.26 speed.

And we both have shared complaints about the three liter cars.

And so the purpose of this exercise was for us to both try out

a 3.2 liter six speed car to see where they're,

in Jason's case, it makes him hate it any less.

Oh, come on.

That's, you can't pin this fully on me.

You don't like the three liter car either.

I like the R.

Yes, I do like the type R for sure.

I do like the three liter car,

but probably not enough to own one.

Okay.

You dislike actively.

I flew to buy one and flew home without it.

That was, that's how much I disliked it.

And it was not because of any unwelcome discovery

about the car's condition or history.

It was because you don't fundamentally enjoy

the NSX experience enough to own one.

There were my observations at the time,

and I had a cashier's check with me when I flew down.

It was actually funny enough,

the morning that I gave my notice to quit automobile.

I always buy cars the day that I quit jobs.

But I flew down to LA to do a press junket

on the Infinity JX, which was the Pathfinder.

Front-wheel drive.

And one of the people on that press trip

was also someone from Edmonds,

who had their long-term, it was black, I think.

I love how I don't even remember what color it was.

I'm pretty sure it was black NSX, black or silver NSX,

that they had just spent a year doing the long-term test on

and I was buying it at the end.

And I got in the car,

as Michael Jordan was the gentleman

who had previously worked with me at automobile,

great guy, not the-

Basketball player.

Baseball player, whatever his name is.

He did play baseball, that's true.

Also.

Did he?

Oh, I was joking.

Yeah. I don't know.

All I know is he's got shoes.

Anyway, I wore Michael Jordan's, that's, I'll stop.

I drove the car and was kind of heartbroken

because I'd driven one once in a straight line

and was intoxicated with the induction noise.

It had K&Ns in it or something and just-

Even out of the box,

they sound wonderful induction noise.

We'll get to that in a second.

I thought the induction noise was wonderful.

The shifter was great.

Ride quality was nice.

That was what I remembered.

Got in this car and the phrase that kept coming to mind

as I test drove it was passionless.

I just thought, wow, okay.

It's a, when you're caning it,

it has wonderful induction noise.

You hear the VTEC changeover, which I like.

And it's just, it's, you don't feel it.

Like in some of the really, really crazy-

The four-cylinder.

Four-cylinder hottest.

But you got a little bit of an intake note change

and it pulls really hard to 8,000 RPM,

but the gears were so unbelievably long

that I sort of transported myself to the,

what will I be doing with this car in the real world scenario,

which was driving around San Francisco

where speeds are low and hills are steep.

And I realized that the visit arrow,

which is one of the sort of main through affairs

of the city is probably a 20% grade,

20-something percent grade at some point.

Yeah, the North End.

The North End, which is where I'm always driving through.

And there's a stop sign at every block.

And so you're stopping on a 20% grade.

And I realized that there's no way this car,

the two, the three-liter car

would have been able to do that in second gear.

So I would have to be in first gear at low load

at 2,000-4,000 RPM.

And that engine at 3,500 RPM,

which is where most V6s fall apart acoustically,

fell apart acoustically.

It just sounded awful.

And when you have the rise of revs

and induction noise layered on top of it,

it was beautiful, sticking around at 3,500 RPM.

It was worse than an Accord V6.

You add to that the long gearing

and the widely spaced gearing.

So if you don't shift at eight grand,

you're dead out of the torque zone in the next gear.

And the fact that it had dead steering,

which irritates me because it's unassisted

and unassisted.

In the early cars.

Yeah, unassisted racked pinion steering

in the world according to Jason should be very feel-some.

And then you add to that, it has a huge turning radius.

And then you add to that,

that it scraped the front end everywhere.

I just realized this isn't gonna work for my use case.

Now, it's not that I hated the car,

but I just didn't want to own it.

I then subsequently years later was in Phoenix.

And my friend Tyson has about 200,000 to Acura's.

And I drove his around.

All of which have 400,000 miles.

Yes, or well, minimum.

There were somewhere between 400 and 4 billion miles of base.

Drove his NSX, I believe it's red.

So I think I remember that color.

And I thought same thing.

Wow, okay.

Wide open spaces in Phoenix.

I could be in a Civic.

The clutch was easy.

The shifter was great.

Everything worked.

It's got the great Honda.

Like all the things that I like about Hondas,

but then the switch gear is kind of crappy

compared to other Hondas.

And that bothered me because I love Honda switch gear.

And the experience just didn't rise to the level

of me loving it.

And I thought you can spend,

but you should have more fun in a sports car than this.

So that's my three liter, five speed thing.

Never loved them.

Do you have any feedback from my observations?

You disagree with any of that?

No, I agree.

It's not a very textural experience,

but some cars are too textural.

I think that, well, this is interesting

because driving the 355 back to back

is, it is very textural in some senses.

And I think not that textural in others.

Like the build quality is so abysmal in those cars,

comparatively, both to a Porsche or a Mercedes or a Honda.

Like it's just so tragic how poorly those cars wear

age and miles.

Like they really just don't look good

even with 12,000 miles or 20 or 30,000 miles.

So the car that I drove today was 23,000 miles.

Stunningly beautiful.

Also yellow, stunningly beautiful.

I got in and laughed at the interior.

Yeah.

I mean, the dashboard and the way the leather wears

and the carpets wear and it's just,

it's really outrageous how those cars don't persist.

So, I mean, that's texture,

but maybe not the right kind of texture.

So how did you find the experience comparison?

Or is that the punchline that we wanna build to?

So let's get there.

So this is a three two later car.

Initial impressions are, it smells great,

it's a Honda.

parked Honda

of Honda. The shifter is holy shit great. And the overall ergonomics just work, right? It's just

it's a nice place to be. And it's a league ahead of that 355.

Yeah. And this is by design. I mean, Honda is a intelligent company that designed a sports car

from as a clean sheet, you know, from the ground up to be usable. And the car certainly succeeds

at that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, night and day difference in interior quality. I remember on the

three. I think this car, the interior of this car looks kind of 90s frumpy in some respects.

I think like the steering wheel and the dashboard and the gathered leather,

it's a little bit dated. It's charming now. Right. But you know, if you have like associations with

like a sort of pedestrian car, I think it could be a bit of a buzzkill because it reminds too much

of pedestrian cars. If you spend a lot of time in regular Hondas of this era. And so in that sense,

it doesn't feel, I think terribly special and like the dashboard material is very glossy and

obviously faux leather, not real leather. And the type R addresses this because it's got an

alcantara dash and it doesn't have any gathered leather anywhere and it has like carbon fiber

bucket seats. So that it's just, I think some of the trim choices, which are sort of period

decisions that are charming now, but could be off-putting. Could be off-putting, but also

could be familiar to the people who love Hondas. Yes. Comforting, for sure. For sure. But doesn't

feel like special. It's not like an LFA when you get inside and everything is like bespoke and

expensive, but of course the cost price. But so it feels like a Lexus. Yeah. The cost point is

quite different. I mean, the LFA costs twice as much as a Mercedes SLS basically when it was new.

And this car was like more than a 911 base and less than a 911 turbo at the time. So

different categories of expectation. What struck me on this car right away was, again,

that the switch gear, like Hondas turn signal stocks are magical. This is just an untrimmed

piece of plastic. And I thought, why? Why? When you guys had this great, as a company that had this

great feeling switch gear, it's fine. And then I started to move. So I started it. And the first

thing, you get a sort of left, right oscillation in these cars at idle. They sort of shake the

cabin a little bit. This one less so than the last three liter I drove. I don't mind vibrations.

In fact, I like them. I just don't think anyone likes of V6's particular brand of vibrations.

But this car's clutch is a pain in the ass. Yeah, it's got a kind of aggressive clutch.

I stalled it. I did too. Did you really? I stalled it in red light. I'm so embarrassed.

Yes. I think this is the first car I've sold in years. Yeah. Yeah. And rather like embarrassingly.

So it wasn't these like, one of these like, some cars will just give out like.

Yeah. Some cars like it doesn't catch the idle on the way down or something like that.

This was just. Shit. Yeah. So embarrassing. Okay. Makes me feel better that you did that.

But it's got one of those, the clutch that catches sort of abruptly and not in the,

not very at the very bottom of the travel where I kind of want it to. And then a flywheel

that's light. So it doesn't have the mass to keep itself running,

but also then a super over exuberant rev directly off idle and the gas pedal.

So you want like 1100 RPM and your choice is 600 or 2000. Yeah.

And then there's no mass to dampen it. So yeah, that irritated me.

And then what was the warning you gave me before I got on this car?

I said, make sure you have your brazier on board.

And why, why would you say that? Because I think you have often,

you will express that a car has poor ride quality by saying that it will knock you out

with your own tits or give you a black eye. I'm shocked. I have teeth. I mean,

maybe it's because my bosom is smaller than it has been in the past. They is a bosom.

Doesn't have an S on it. I would consider it singular, but I'm not at length. I don't know.

My moves. Yeah. I think that might be the stiffest, worst ride of any production car

I've ever experienced. Yeah. I'm struggling to think if I can think of anything more gnarly than

that. It was to the point that I looked under the car to make sure that it has factory suspension

on it, which as far as I did a quick glance, like 10 seconds, because you were driving away

while it was happening. But I think it was, it looks to me like it's stock. I didn't see anything

that looked after market under there. One of the, so in addition to the, you know, if you're going

through the list of like upgrades they made when they went to the facelift, they, you know,

obviously restyled the car, improved his aerodynamic characteristics. They also enlarged the diameter

of the wheels by one inch a piece. And they also stiffened the spring rates. And I think they

stiffened maybe the rear sway bar as well. So the car is definitely stiffer by design. And if this

car is indeed stock, which I think it is, then like, I think they maybe went a little too far

because the normal NSX has a very pleasant, unremarkable ride, which is exactly what you

want. You want it to feel controlled, but not harsh. You think it's a little wayward?

No, I think it's a little bit too good, right? I mean, I don't want, look, McLaren would obviously

argue with this. You can get an even an MP412C rides like a Rolls Royce. But that's a magical

quality. I would say to have a little bit of jitter and a little bit of feedback on otherwise,

what is a num steering? We'll get to that point. Wouldn't bother me so much, but this is brutal.

And it's like within a, not even a block. You're just like, oh my God, it doesn't feel like there's

springs in here. The only other Honda that I ever drove, drove like this was the Honda's also yellow

museum, accurate, which had seeds in the back. So maybe this is not by design, but wow,

is that stiff? Yeah, that was my observation too. I did not hustle this car at all, but my

colleagues did for making the driving video that we'll use for the listing. It's for sale. That's

why we have it. I didn't hustle it, but my colleagues who drove it said that at speed,

it was really effective and functional and becomes more fluid and does exactly what you

wanted to do. Admittedly, one of them is Taz, who's a race car driver. So he likes

body control at the expense of everything else, but he said that it worked at speed.

He said it was Porsche-like magic in its fluidity and capability. And I can see that.

I mean, I could say when you have that bad of a ride, stiff of a ride,

one would hope that it would be able to manage. But he was, I ran into him this morning and he said

that its ability to put power down was remarkable and it was just cohesive and really capable.

What I didn't notice was the power steering, which is interesting,

because it just fades out at speed, but it does it in a natural enough way that I just didn't

even notice that it had power steering. I just felt normal. And then when I went around the first

corner quickly, it waded up quite nicely. I thought, oh, okay, well, that's pretty cool,

because it's very light at parking lot speeds, but then loads up in the similar way to the,

I remember the three-liter car doing, which is nice. No feel, absolutely dead. Like you could run over

a Lotus and not feel it, but okay. The induction noise was not what I remember

on the three-liter car. Are they different in your recollection also?

Yeah, but not like the three-liter car is better, but not like hugely different.

I noticed, or I remember noticing the VTEC changeover acoustically in the three-liter car,

and I don't hear it. I have never felt it in driving. Never felt it. I've never noticed it in

driving NSX. Something else to be aware of is that this is a T-Model Targa with a removable

roof panel, and there's a second layer on the engine lid, because when you take the roof off,

you put it in the engine compartment on top of the engine lid, and there's another cover that

goes there. So it's possible that that lid is absorbing some sound, potentially?

Listen, it's also possible that, I'm trying to think of how long ago I drove Tyson's NSX.

It's got to be seven years. I drove a three-liter car recently, like a month or two ago, and it

does have more induction noise, but this car has some cars you never hear. This car does,

definitely. And if you are at 2600 RPM in sixth gear and you put your foot on the floor,

you will definitely hear it, but you won't hear it as much of the time as you do in at least

the three-liter car with a fixed roof that I drove. I will also say this car is stock exhaust?

No. Okay. It sounds incredible. Yes. Like what I love about it is the balance of intake noise

to mechanical noise to exhaust noise is kind of perfect in this car, whereas the factory car,

it's too much of an ugly mechanical noise to variable of intake noise, because when you're

off-throttle, if you're not wide-open throttle, the intake kind of goes away. And so you're left

with this mechanical noise. This is layered beautifully, and there's this fucking mezzo-soprano

going on out the back that you hear reflecting off of stuff. Sounds amazing.

Yeah. I do like the way these cars sound. This one particularly. Yeah. I mean,

I think the standard three-liter cars need an exhaust. They're just, it's nice,

it's pleasant exhaust noise, but it's not loud enough. And so you don't get that sort of complete

sound experience that you were describing that I think this car does a better job of.

Yeah. This one.

Intake noise notwithstanding. Okay.

Lack of intake noise notwithstanding. So the other big change is gearing.

Six speed versus five speed. Plus mid-range torque. So I think this one's got

three two versus three liters. It's a significant bump in mid-range torque.

Did you feel meaningfully more oomph, which is compounded by the gearing?

Okay. So gearing. First gear, second gear, third gear, red line.

I only did third gear and it was 90 something miles an hour.

Like 99. Is it? Did you look at it?

45, 75, 99 indicated on a closed course, on a dyno, with no one around.

In Mexico.

With a Mexican police escort.

Yes.

Yeah. 98, 99 somewhere right there. I mean, I didn't,

I didn't smack on the limiter at that speed. I just, yeah.

Geared quite long.

Yes. Still has very long gearing. I would describe the gearing is as

less long rather than short.

It is always definitely not short.

But 45, 75, at least they're reasonably close together.

I think the original car was 50 and 80 something for memory.

And when I, so I drove back to back the three liter car and the 355 on the same road because

we use the same section of road for driving videos and both of those cars needed video

made on the same day.

And I was getting into third gear in the 355 and I was never even close to red line

in the three liter NSX.

Which is wild.

Okay. Let's switch over to 355 because I drove it right before I drove this or before I drove this.

That car, the gearing irritated me more than this.

That thing indicated I never got to red line in that car in first because I was kind of trying

to be nice to it. It's also for sale and it's in town.

And but that is a 50 something mile an hour first gear.

And we should have looked this up before we started recording, but it was close to 60.

Now that was indicated. I don't know, you know, Italian electronics, who knows.

Over-reporting speed.

Judging from what I saw, 56 miles an hour in first, but then 70 something in second.

So first and second, the gears at typical Ferrari are really, really close together.

But what I noticed is you matted off the line in that thing and

Prius next to you is.

The look of the Montezemolo experience that he had in his 348.

Forget about a fucking GTI beating you because that was the GTI VR6 beating him in the line.

My GTI VR6 Cabrio would destroy that 355 off the line, but so would a Prius.

It is not fast.

Or torquey.

Once you get it up in the revs, yeah, it wakes up and it's fine.

But that.

Tall first.

Tall first was a problem in that car.

So you want to talk about your hatred for 355s first and then I'll chime in with mine?

Um, yeah.

So I like the character of the engine, but the noise is not a particular draw for me.

The way it is for most people, I do think it sounds,

it's the best sounding eight cylinder Ferrari.

I think that is fuel injected, probably.

What carbureted eight cylinder Ferrari sounds better than this?

Yeah.

Okay.

I mean, yeah, you'd have to have like a race car.

It'd have to be like a racing 308 or something like that.

I love all cars.

Clear about this car.

This car did not have a stock exhaust.

It has a 2B can only, but everything else was stock.

It is.

It has the factory cats and headers.

That is to say.

You're kidding.

Yeah.

That is just the muffler.

It is fucking wild.

Yeah.

It is the most insane sounding 355 I've ever driven.

It's how they should have sounded from the factory.

It is a screaming banshee.

Okay. So first of all, let me say, I got on the car, it was quiet.

I started it, it was cold.

I'm sorry.

Started it in OTS's shop and then drove it out and never won over 3500 RPM until it got fully warmed

and then got on the highway and just wound it out in second and third.

And I thought, okay, it's there.

It's a flat plane V8 and it sounds nice.

Ride quality on the highway was great, whatever.

And then on the way back in town, I got off the highway, rolled down the windows

and shit myself with embarrassment about how loud that fucking thing was.

I don't, I can't believe I did that with other cars around.

Like I can't believe no one crashed when I did that.

It's nuts.

So we, you have that real.

Yes.

You guys publish, we should play that now.

And that is the most insane sounding 3550.

Yeah. So, and it's just a muffler and the thing that, you know, we always say with

550s is that people put 2B mufflers on those cars and they sound like garbage.

You have to do like much more invasive changes to get those cars to sound good.

And then they do sound good.

And the 355 apparently is the opposite because you, everything you just,

you just put a muffler on it and that's it.

Which is of course the thing that this is like a return to juvenileness when you're

like, oh great, I'm just going to put a muffler on it and that's going to be enough.

And then, you know, the Ferrari approaches.

No, you got to do this and this and this and this and get by the whole system.

And then it's like 10 grand and blah, blah, blah.

But yeah, in the case of the 355, just a muffler does great things.

But here's my, my stance on this is and always has been, I'm buying the car.

I'm driving it.

I'm risking my license and I am responsible for the timing belt service.

I want to hear it.

Why does everyone else get to hear the best part of that exhaust?

And in the car, you don't open the windows.

I would have to have a spider, I'd have to have a convertible and I'd have to drive it

in town at all times, pissing everyone off so I can hear it reflecting off of buildings.

It is truly the most amazing sound of any car ever, but it's not.

You don't hear it in the car.

I would need the car with the roof.

I've driven, so this, as it turns out, I went and checked.

This is the first Berlinetta 355 I've driven.

Every other 355 I'd driven has been an open car.

And I think that's part of why I've hated them so much because of the lack of structure.

This car is definitely much more structure than a spider.

It doesn't make the steering it.

It makes the steering ever less worse, less bad, I'd say.

The steering remains one of my biggest complaints about that car.

What about it?

It is too light.

It has too much assist and it doesn't have enough feel and the ratio is too slow.

Yeah, I would say yes, yes, yes, and definitely yes.

Although that ratio is pretty slow too.

Yes, also true.

This is a 90 thing.

But yeah, the Ferrari is noticeably slow.

Yeah.

And just, it feels like a non-sporting car.

The weight of the steering at least gives it some sort of sporting intent.

The steering in the 355 feels disproportionately light compared to the other control forces.

It lacks control harmony.

I wonder if Luca did Montez-Emmelot.

So you mentioned briefly, he took over his chairman of Ferrari.

He was very upset that he was a customer.

He returned to Ferrari.

He had run their Formula 1 program in the 70s.

Returned to the streetcar side of it.

Had a customer called his own 348 a piece of shit

and had was upset that he had lost a drag race to GTi, GTi VR6,

and fixed a lot of the things with the 355.

I wonder though, if he was aiming for a luxury experience at that point in time,

after being, you know, because the 348, which by the way,

I don't think the 348's interior is any less crappy than 355's.

I agree.

But it just, this one tries to be like, is everything is sort of padded leather.

And the whole experience of the car is pretty civilized.

And I wonder if he did that on purpose.

And that's why the steering was so light.

He wanted it just to be a light usable thing for like a luxury car and not.

Yeah.

My impression also after hustling the car was that it was capable

and felt actually kind of scalpily, but a little bit unspecial actually.

And I was like, this is kind of NSXE actually, the way that it feels unspecial.

And what, were you going to say that also?

They both, they're very similar.

Yeah.

More so than I was expecting because you think of Ferraris as being crappy

because they appear crappy in a lot of respects in terms of like interior quality.

And like, I know what it takes to own and maintain one of those cars.

And so you think of, it is objectively kind of crappy in some respects,

but like dynamically and usability, like driving hustling,

it's a flattering car that makes it easy to go fast.

And in that sense, it reminded me of the NSX.

It feels like a car that if you were trying to go as fast as possible would be your friend.

Whereas, we pretend to gravitate towards cars where the goal is not miles per hour.

In my case, the goal is like smiles per corner.

Yeah, corner.

And so that they both left me with this impression of like

competence to the point of maybe not, of not being involving enough or not enough

challenge or not ratifying enough to get the car to go down the road fast.

But it is fun.

I mean, it is fun to rev it out.

The gear change is actually quite nice in that 355.

Funny.

I thought it was fine.

So the clutch on that, I much prefer the clutch on a 355 to the NSX.

The shifter is just no contest.

I mean, I love a Ferrari gated shifter and the throws are four times longer than the NSX.

And it's fine.

What I didn't like about it is the way the fuel injection is tuned

so that you get, the engine computer clearly has a lot of anti-stall built into it.

So it's adding throttle to stop you from stalling it when you're coming off the clutch.

But then you have a hole where there's nothing.

So you get this initial, like you kind of take off nobody.

And then you got to get a lot of throttle to get past that, to get back to where you were.

You have to drive like an Italian.

Like a fucking lunatic.

With a lot of throttle.

Yeah.

And then it's fine.

Like, you know, caning both of them, they're really good.

This might have very grabby brakes on both cars, actually.

But they're both easy to heel and toe on the way down,

downshifting 5th, 4th, 3rd, 2nd coming into a corner.

But they're very different.

You know, the Ferrari's long throw in that wild Ferrari gated shifter.

It feels more old fashioned in many respects.

But its competence and ability to go down the road quickly makes it feel more modern,

pretty modern.

What I didn't do in either of these cars is really mop them on a back road.

I didn't really, I took a corner quickly in both of them,

which I suspect given the way that it feels that this car will feel

much more scalpel, like just because of its ride and the Ferrari will be looser.

But as I don't, I don't know.

The Ferrari actually does the massless thing that we associate with modern

Ferraris in a way that I was not expecting, especially after,

because I have, I think more seat time in 550s.

And those cars do not feel massless.

They feel massive, I guess is the right word.

But it kind of has this very scalpeliness and lightness and easiness that is like uncountashy,

for sure, for example.

And even on Testerosa, like Testerosa's are easy, but the forces are high.

And the forces are mostly light in the 355.

Mostly too light, I would say.

Brakes, you know, brakes and steering especially, but also brakes.

Yeah, it was really interesting to drive them back to back.

I would love to drag race them, I love to drag race them,

because I don't know which one would be quicker.

They're probably close.

I mean, the one assumes they're approximately similar weights.

The Ferrari does have 90 more horsepower allegedly.

Yeah.

I mean, it has more displacement, but it doesn't have variable valve timing.

Yeah.

I mean, we can look at the magazine reviews from the day and I don't necessarily trust them,

because as we've talked about, Ferrari optimizes maybe better than other companies.

What I remember is that the 993 Turbo, the Esprit Turbo V8 and the 355 were all

very comparable 0 to 60 times.

4-6 or something.

Yeah, they're all mid-4s and they're all top speeds are like 180-ish, plus or minus 5.

And this has got to be 5.0 to 60?

Yeah.

It's maybe slightly less speedy.

Yeah.

But the acoustic experience, aside from that fucking exhaust,

which is magical, is similar.

Actually, I think in the car, this NSX sounds better.

It's definitely more balanced between intake exhaust and sort of everything.

And it's very quite musical in the mid-range too.

So, if you had to buy one of these, so they both cars were yellow.

I don't know price.

This one has a yellow interior, which is an extremely rare option.

It's a choice, I think is the phrase that some people would use.

It's love it or hate it.

Most people chose to hate it because it's extremely rare.

And that's why it's extremely rare, is what you're saying?

Yes, they chose to hate it and thus it's extremely rare.

But it is in the brochure.

It's depicted as the color scheme in the car's brochure.

And there were two yellows for these cars that look, I guess they look different.

There was Spa Yellow in 0203 and then Rio Yellow in 0405.

And the yellow interior was available with both.

And the yellow interior was not available with any other exterior color.

Like, I think that this would look halfway, I think it would look better on a black car

with the yellow interior, but that was never offered.

It was, you had to have yellow paint if you got the yellow interior.

So the number was like, I think it was 14 of Rio Yellow and like 34 or something of Spa Yellow.

So all in 50 cars were built that were yellow on yellow.

Could you get yellow with black interior?

Yes, most of them were yellow with black interior,

but there was a small number of them that were yellow with yellow interior,

which includes the trunk button and the hatch release handle

and all this plastic stuff that they have to have molded in yellow to match the interior,

which I think was surprising that they went through all the trouble to tool up,

to make 50 cars with yellow interiors.

Which all then faded to different colors.

The carpets fade, yes.

Everything else remains more or less yellow, but the carpets do turn more tan,

which is why this car has three sets of floor mats with it.

The tan ones that were used to used to be yellow,

the yellow ones that are used for driving,

and then the yellow ones that are brand new, that have never been touched.

If you want to know what kind of owner this car had.

So what price point are we at for these two cars?

Because you know what the question is going to come to, which one do you buy?

And the question is, this car has not quite three times the mileage of the 355,

but the interior is in better condition because it's a Honda and not a Ferrari.

And I think the mechanical concerns would be the similar.

I bet that that Ferrari has seen more dollars in maintenance in its life than this car has,

even though this car has three times the mileage.

And so my question for when you decide what the value is,

are you comparing like for like mileage or not?

Because 60,000 miles on this car is probably nicer in terms of maintenance costs and interior wear

than a 20 something thousand mile 355.

And our 355 is not exceptional in its presentation.

Like as 355s go, it's probably a 90th percentile 355.

But that's just the way that they all wear time and miles.

So my question is when you're asking price comparison,

are you equalizing mileage or not?

What I was really doing is asking about these two particular cars.

But I think a 3x mileage multiplier is probably right.

I mean, the Honda motor will last 300,000 miles,

the Ferrari motor will last 100,000 miles.

So they're comparable in terms of percentage of life used.

Correct.

But if you think about in terms of miles that you can cover in it

and percentage of the life that you're using.

I mean, I think the whole exercise would be a little bit different if we said,

which one would you daily?

Sure.

Yes.

And put miles on.

Unless you have a staff of mechanics and techs who are working on the car

and make sure it's fine at all times.

Yeah, or a whole bag of 355s such that you can rotate through them

while each one is going through its substantial, you know.

But I mean, they're both timing belt cars.

They both need timing belts every 10 years.

Yeah.

And the timing belt service on this car is probably $6,000.

And on the Ferrari, it's probably 15 or 20

because there's usually while you're in theirs to do.

But is that?

I know you live in this world.

Well, it's like it's so stupid.

It's so hard to get to something that if the incremental cost is $400 of parts

to do the whatever while you're in there.

I understand that.

But that incremental cost turns a $5,000 timing belt into a $20,000 timing belt.

And it turns an $11,000 timing belt into a $17,000 timing belt.

But yes.

Is there anything more difficult about that Ferrari's timing belt service

than there is about this?

Accuracy.

Yes.

You have to take the engine out.

That's not all that much time.

We should go talk to the techs.

And have you seen it?

Like the whole back of the car comes off.

Like there's literally nothing from the firewall back.

You have to take the bumper off and everything.

Yeah, but that's a bumper.

I don't know on that car.

But I've done plenty of timing belts and I've removed plenty of front ends off,

of course, bumpers and shit.

It's not that much.

It looks extreme.

But I just got the engine out on that stupid Jetta that I did,

which involves bumper, front, cross member, and the whole thing,

and engine, full subframe out in an hour and 50 minutes.

I promise you it's more in a 355.

Okay.

It was a junkyard car that I didn't really care about.

And so I didn't, you know, it was more scratching things.

I understand that.

But the idea though is you can make a big impact visually,

you know, removing an engine in, it's a disproportionate amount of drama,

visual drama relative to how much time it often takes to pull an engine.

But this engine in, where's the belt?

It's on the front of the, front of the model.

It's transverse.

Oh, I didn't think about that.

It's transverse.

So it's on the, so it's a pain in the ass to get to-

You have to take the wheel off and fender liners, I imagine.

In any case, so-

I would love to know for the record.

And if somebody's out there, how many hours, how many book hours,

and how many real hours it takes to do a NSX timing belt versus a Ferrari timing belt,

with none of the other, I'm sorry to say this bullshit,

that Ferrari text throw in like,

oh, we're going to sand your valve covers down and recrackle finish them.

That's not a timing service.

That's a visual thing.

And it's a trick for Ferrari text to make more money on it.

And they all do it.

Like, I know you're going to get mad at me.

I'm sorry.

You're in this world.

They don't.

We literally just sold a 512 TR and someone was complaining

that we hadn't repainted the valve covers when it got a timing belt.

Ugh, you should have kicked that customer in the-

Never mind.

Sorry.

Go on.

He also complained that it was leaking oil.

What an asshole.

Of course it's leaking oil.

It's a Ferrari.

Well, and it's like, you just did a major service.

It's like, yes, we just did a major service.

We didn't reseal the engine.

We took the engine out, put new timing belts on it,

and then put it back on and put new valve cover gases on it

because you have to adjust the valves.

But like, there's seals that are 30 years old in there.

I'm going off on a tangent about how people who are inexperienced

at owning old cars shouldn't own old cars.

Anyway, when we last did our last timing belt service on an NSX,

there were a lot of while you were in there also.

They got new VTEC seals.

It got new cam seals, none of which are required to do a timing belt,

but they were leaking.

So we did the radiator coolant expansion tank was cracked.

Like, it's just, it's an old car and there's stuff to do

that while you're in there, you end up meeting to do.

Or if you want it to not smell like burning oil anymore

when you drive it, then you have to do these additional seals,

which aren't directly related to the timing belt service.

Okay, which one are we buying?

I think, which, how do they compare in cost?

So the Ferrari is 50% more expensive with a third of the mileage.

But the same percentage of lifetime use,

a 50% more expensive for the Ferrari.

Okay, let's talk about looks, one out of 10, each car.

This NSX or?

This, this NSX VAT Ferrari.

The Ferrari is a nine.

This is a 7.9.

Sorry, with facelift?

Yeah.

Oh, 6.9.

Okay, I would say with a facelift, I was gonna say eight and nine,

but maybe it's a seven with the pop-ups.

Okay, engine sound?

All in one.

This is, this is tough for me or this is easy for me

because I'm not, the flat plane V8 noise just doesn't do as much for me

as it does everybody else.

That one, I know in general.

I like that one, yes.

And I genuinely do like that one,

but it's not like this fetishized,

like the best noise ever thing for me.

Outside of that car, it's a 14 out of 10.

Yeah, okay.

I'm gonna, I will say, I can't give it that

because you don't get to experience it

as the person who's responsible for buying

and doing that fucking timing belt service.

But I'm a number for each.

I give that an eight and this a nine.

I'm gonna give them both a nine.

Engine power delivery?

This is nice because it's got torque down low

and it's mid-range, it's punchy

and it doesn't run out of breath at the top.

And the Ferrari is more traditional

in the sense that you really got a can,

it's a go anywhere, which is its own kind of fun.

I like them both, but in different ways.

So I guess they get the same score, which is high,

but they're, even though they have very different characters.

So, you know, we give them both an eight and a half or nine.

I was gonna say Ferrari nine, NSX nine, Ferrari eight,

just because this is a broader torque curve,

but it suffers nothing at the top end for it.

Steering?

I prefer the NSX for sure.

And I give it like a six and a half

and I give the Ferrari a four and a half, I guess.

I was gonna say a three and a five.

So, yeah, not-

We have similar spread.

Similar spread, suspension.

You know, in terms of, we'll call it ride quality.

Ride quality, okay.

Ride quality, the NSX gets a zero, 0.2, 0.2.

No, it's a zero.

I was like, what would the point two?

I had to come up with something good,

some glimmer of goodness,

and I couldn't come up with anything good at all.

So it's a zero.

It actually isn't as bad on the highway as it is around.

Yeah, on the highway, it's in the realm of acceptable

for a performance car of this era.

But it's getting a three for me.

It's at the lower edge of acceptable.

The Ferrari ride quality is a 5.7.

Okay, I was saying three and six, so we're not there.

Again, the spread is the same.

Shifter.

Yeah, this is a nine and a half.

Maybe it's a 10.

10.

The Ferrari is a 7.8.

I give the Ferrari five.

Really?

Yeah, this is a 10, that's a five.

I like it because it's sort of repeatable.

I don't mind long throws,

and I don't mind the sort of deliberateness to it.

And that one has a slickness to it

that oftentimes six-speed Ferraris don't.

I've driven a lot of six-speed Ferraris,

and they're really variable.

And that one is one of the best six-speed Ferrari shifters

I have used.

You know why I gave it to Merritt?

It says you can't get into second till it's warmed up.

It's a typical Ferrari.

Every Ferrari is like that.

Yeah, I know, but they're getting

to Merritt points for it.

Okay.

I mean, this thing you get into, go.

Yeah, sure.

I don't even notice it.

It's just the thing that you're like,

it's part of a Ferrari.

It's part of a Ferrari.

I started out in second a couple of times

just to get some heat in that gear,

so we could go in.

What else we got?

I mean, limit handling and handling,

I can't really speak for.

Yeah, I mean, in the limited use that I did,

I found them both to be very flattering,

willing, competent, not scary.

It didn't feel crappy.

It didn't feel outclassed.

So, yeah, they both passed the test to the extent that I...

Same, both the extent, I mean,

I tried to kick both tails out.

They both put all their power down.

They were great.

Okay.

Cost of ownership, though, is really the issue.

Are 3.5.5s that bad?

Crat to exhaust manifolds.

They're like super common on those cars.

Even the late ones, I thought that was only the 95s

or the first year or the first year OBD2,

96 cars or whatever.

I have seen issues on all of them.

A lot of them got updated from Ferrari

and apparently Ferrari had an updated part

that has been retrofitted,

but it's like, there's just this stuff where it's like,

why does this car with this mileage

need this kind of intervention?

Fair point.

Like, I will...

One of the first 3.5.5s I ever interacted with,

it was so obsessively maintained

by a guy who had such a huge pile of service invoices,

and we took it in for a PPI,

and it came back with $11,000 of needs,

and it was this guy who took the car,

and every time, and he said,

whatever it needs, do it.

And it still had $11,000 of needs when he...

Like, when we PPI'd the car.

Probably including sticky buttons.

No, no, no, this was mechanical needs.

And then the windshield cracked while we had it,

while we were literally doing nothing.

We were driving down a straight piece

of well-paved road in the windshield cracked.

It was a convertible.

But yeah, it's just, they're really rough to live with.

Expensive, right?

If you don't care about what it costs to maintain it,

it's fine.

Most people do though, but you know...

So if we do purchase price,

maintenance price adjusted for purchase price,

if Ferrari is more than a 50...

So if the purchase price is 50% premium,

is maintenance more than a 50% premium?

I think I'm going to answer this, but yeah.

It's more like a 200 or 300% premium, right?

All right, which are you buying?

This exact car.

9-11.

You can't.

It's tough.

I would buy this.

I think I would too.

Just because I'm not getting that much more enjoyment

out of the Ferrari, and I'm not getting

that much enjoyment out of either one of them,

that I would just cut my losses, so to speak.

And just the sort of ever present specter

of very expensive things going wrong

with the Ferrari would diminish my enjoyment.

And the other thing that would diminish my enjoyment

is knowing the impact of each mile on the value.

Because this car has 3 to 1 ratio.

Yeah, effectively.

I mean, especially at this mileage,

that wouldn't be true if they were both 20,000 mile cars.

I mean, a 20,000 mile late NSX is $100,000 more

than the Ferrari probably.

Okay, so when you get to mileage parity,

the NSX is more expensive?

No, probably they're about the same.

Maybe the NSX is marginally more expensive

if the mileage is equal, but I'm talking about...

There's been a couple of late NSXs

that have sold high twos, low threes,

with sub 15 or 10,000 miles.

It's harder to find a really low mileage NSX than it is.

Yeah, because they're easier to put miles on

and less expensive.

And so they are really expensive

when they have low mileage.

It's more common to find an 11,000 mile 355

than an 11,000 mile NSX.

But the late ones were more collectible,

so the late cars are easier to find low mileage NSXs

than the three liter cars.

And they're worth more than that?

Yes.

So are pop-up three twos the most valuable?

No, actually not.

So the market actually prefers,

or is it just scarcity that they prefer?

Yeah, these cars were not selling well

at the end of their lives because they were quite expensive.

Well, it depends on your reference point,

but yeah, I mean, in 90s...

They were 15 years old at the end.

Well, you know what else was ancient?

It was a Porsche 993.

But the Porsche 993 feels ancient in like...

So the 993...

The 993 is ancient, 50 years old at that point.

30.

But in 95, an Carrera Coupe manual to wheel drive,

which was the cheapest 911 you could buy,

which is now the most expensive 911 you can buy

because the Cabriolets...

Targets are worth good money.

Cabriolets aren't worth shit comparatively.

Anyway, low 60s for a Carrera 2 Coupe,

and NSX was kind of like low 80s.

But then a Turbo 911 was a four-wheel drive,

so not a super direct comparison,

but those were like 100, 110 for a Turbo.

So the NSX split the NA and Turbocharged 911s.

You know what just occurred to me?

Because I did a revelations on the NSX, and I forgot.

Forgot?

You did the episode?

Funny, it's not that I forgot,

but in this whole conversation,

I'm thinking back to NSXs I've driven,

and I think of the black one from Edmunds,

and then Tyson's red one,

and then I completely forgot.

And then I drove as an arty around Sonoma.

Interested to know impressions of that,

because that is actually the top of the heap

of desirability for NSXs.

I don't...

It overheated, it didn't overheat,

but it was spinning cool and out,

and it was just...

This was on the launch of the new NSX.

They had a Supercharged 190.

So they pulled one out of a museum

and didn't do anything to it,

and then told people to drive it on track.

And then accused me of beating the car up.

The best part about filming things

is you have everything on film.

And so we were able to show there was nothing,

plus there was a person who worked for Acura,

that I don't know how to say the C word without saying the C word,

and I don't want to say the C word.

Okay, say no more.

A horrible, terrible,

fucking vile human being who worked for Acura,

who was very upset that I didn't give the new car a glowing review

because I got early access to it,

and therefore I should give it a good review.

This person, I hope, I'm not going to say that.

Does not understand journalistic integrity.

Exactly, or cars or anything else.

And so I was accused of beating up the Zanardi,

and that really colored my impressions,

but it was fast.

But what I don't remember,

particularly loving its handling,

because it wasn't limit stuff,

it was close to limit,

but it wasn't like I wasn't driving 10 tenths,

but of course I came around corners 10 tenths.

And the whole car left me kind of cold.

But the thing about this NSX is that every...

So the Zanardi for context is the only...

That's not true.

You could special order a Coupe 3.2 pop-up headlight car

in the United States market,

but by default the 3.2 liter cars were almost all Targas.

And there's a small number of coupes here,

and then all the Zanardi's were coupes.

So it's like the one kind of reliable way

to get a Coupe 3.2 six-speed in the United States market.

And they did some other performance upgrades,

some sort of minor stuff as well,

and you got different wheels,

and they were all red and on and on.

But the big thing is that it's the only Coupe 3.2 six-beats

that were here because they were all,

by default, Targas pretty much at that time.

So what I did was I just pulled out my...

This is my spreadsheet,

and I didn't even put...

I didn't even list that car.

That was such a miserable experience

that I must have just completely forgotten.

2018, 92 NSX.

This was probably Tyson's car,

so it was almost 10 years ago.

Glad I got to spend more time with an NA1 NSX.

I still don't love it,

but I respect it more than before.

Okay, here goes.

Clutch catches way too high, shifters fantastic.

Steering is great, waiting once you're moving,

but no feedback on center, whatever.

Strange for an unassisted rack.

I didn't feel much in corners either,

but Phoenix doesn't have much in the way of corners,

so those were just on ramps.

I'd like to spend more time with it on a curvy road.

Gearing is way too long.

82 mile an hour second, 115 mile an hour third.

That's why I couldn't get out of second gear on our back road.

Oh my God.

I want to drive a six speed 32 to see what it's like.

The engine shimmies at idle like it's missing its balance shafts.

I genuinely thought it was running on five cylinders.

Incredible ergonomics, if a plane interior,

and a vast view out.

Loud road noise.

I think more tire road noise than the Scirocco even,

and I had driven the Scirocco to Phoenix for this.

And the engine is actually too quiet.

The intake noise is incredible at wide open throttle and 8,000 RPM,

but in normal driving it goes away with barely audible mechanical noise

and no exhaust noise to speak of.

I definitely fixed that if I owned one.

Ice cold AC, a very easy car to live with.

I suspect, but not as thrilling to drive as it looks.

So that was the Phoenix car,

and I don't have notes for the Revelations car.

This is the problem with this car, is it's always forgettable.

How did I forget to make notes?

Like I forgot to make notes on Revelations.

I forgot that I made a Revelations on this car.

And I remember now driving it up the hill, it was red,

it was beautiful, it was in here.

The car shines, I think the car does a very good job

of making you feel heroic.

And that always is mixed for me because in some sense,

that's flattering because you feel like you're competent,

you know what you're doing.

And in other senses, you're like, where's the challenge?

Where's the depth?

What am I going to do on day three of owning this car?

It's fun on day one.

But day three, like you're like, okay, now what?

Well, you know what you're not going to do?

Another timing belt and a big repair.

So that's the benefit for some people.

Yes, for sure.

But yeah, I don't know how day three is hypothetical.

Maybe it's year three or something like that.

But I could see getting a little bit bored

with how competent and how easy it is to go fast

or else you just start going faster and faster or something.

I don't know.

But it's not a car.

And this is like maybe somewhat of a move in my advanced years,

which is that a car that you want to continue to drive

to in pursuit of mastery.

And this car, it puts out on the first date effectively.

So I don't know, do with that what you will.

Some people want that and it's fun for a hookup.

But yeah, I don't know if it's a Mary or not.

Yeah, interesting.

I think my takeaway has got to be as good as it inherently is.

It's forgettable and that's...

But you find the 3.2 and six speed to be an improvement.

Way better.

Yeah.

I would take this over 355.

And despite the fact that I think the 355 is better looking

and that particular one sounds way better on the outside.

Plus Ferrari versus Honda, right?

At the end of the day, you're spending a big amount of money

for something with a Honda badge or something for an Acura badge

and a Ferrari badge.

There's that has to factor into your decision.

But I would sooner own the NSX

because I think of its ease of ownership.

And I think neither particularly are incredibly rewarding.

And if that's going to be the case,

then I'll just cut my losses and spend a little bit less

and have an easier experience owning it.

But I would choose any number of cars over both of them.

Yeah.

And it's not a small number.

No.

But I would probably still...

Like if we're talking about six-cylinder cars,

I'd probably still have an Evora before I would have an NSX.

Certainly an Amira.

But even...

And I could have a brand new Amira with a warranty

and talk about ease of ownership until it breaks.

For the first owner.

Well, for the first owner,

when there's parts in stock and the dealer exists.

Well, it's particularly easy ownership

if you get to Lemonlaw because its downtime has been so high

and then you get all your money back.

That was...

But I would also have...

I mean, at these kind of prices,

I guess you can't probably get a 296 yet.

But there are other six-cylinder cars that...

I'm not going to say a Porsche 911.

But...

I am.

Yeah, I know you are.

You're to dead.

Yes.

I would have a VR6 Cabrio.

And you do.

And I do.

All right.

Well, thank you for joining us for this episode of The Car Margin Show.

You'll see us next week unless you are hearing us next week.

Unless somebody who has an NSX puts a hit out on us.

Yes.

Good luck.

30 Years Later: Does The Acura NSX Outshine the Ferrari 355? — Carmudgeon w/ Cammisa & DTS — Ep. 224

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