hi there.hi there. i am standing behind the all-new second generation acura nsx, or as those of you who live in lesser countries call it, a honda. this thing is so highly anticipated they could have named it finally. why? because its predecessor the first generation nsx is one of the greatest sports cars of all time and now with 573 horsepower there's
only one car from the nsx is home country of japan that could hope to even possibly compete with it godzilla but why do we call the nissan gtr godzilla well because there was a time when one of this guy's ancestors won every single race it entered, making it the most dominant sports car since the porsche 917 and therefore like it's
reptilian silver screen namesake, it destroyed everything in his path but that's the past man we're talking about the here and the now which one of these two modern japanese supercars is the best there's only one way to find out! what the hell are you-- - would you like me to unzip you? what - would you like me to unzip you?
yes please what what the hell are you doing? hello isn't it obvious spoofing was old godzilla movies dude, you look like a reject from a porno parody of jurassic world really yes well if you didn't notice those old godzilla movies were really low budget and you know where it's appropriate i
guess you've proven some sort of point but can we drive the cars? yeah, okay. oddly, you're driving yourself. i noticed. (loud roar) hello old friend. hey there! not you.- oh. the car. this is in its ninth model year. we were in diapers when this car came out still. but yeah, two of the most memorable drives my life took place
in a nissan gt-r. i remember one where i got going so fast i actually pulled over 'cause i couldn't believewhat i'd just done. my car was like an extension of thought i wasn't capable of having. another one, right whenthis thing came out way back in 2008, i caught and passed three ferraris and m5 with a v10, and a viper. i mean, do they
call it godzilla for the reason it can kill everything no, when this thingcame out there was nothing that would approach how fast it was over a back road. nope. and listen i got to admit something it's just not my kind of car, but i've always had a tremendous amount of respect for what it can do. especially given you know 4,000 pounds big car
wow, this thing is a hell of a performer! yep. the problem with number cars, and here i'm going to start is once the numbers fade you're left with the experience and the numbers are faded. not only has nissan given this more and more power and made it slower and less capable but the world has moved on. what was, oh my god fast
is now just a really fast car and you're left with seats that feel like they're kneeing you in your kidneys and engine that sounds like a dyson that's plugged into the wrong outlet a transmission that refuses to cooperate, a lot of turbo lag exteriorthat's just not that special and steering that mmm. look when this thing came out its
straight lineperformance, that was it. and i drove three cars last week that are quicker in the quarter mile plus, not even talkingabout the porsche turbo. you might say okay well this isn't the fast one, there's a nismo one. well guess what, the nismo costs as much as the porsche turbo the porsche turbo's quicker. so rather
than bash on the car, which is kind of more fun let's talk about what they have done differently because again ninth model year yeah so they made the structure five percent percent stiffer, they put some thicker windshield glass in it and add noise cancellation it rides a whole lot better than it used to
it's a nicer car to be in now because the transmission doesn't sound like it's actually going to fall out the bottom of the car they made a quieter but what you are left with is the sound of that engine which sounds like half of aron. it's not a pretty noise you know i like that weird, creaky transmission. it was unique
yes, it sounded like anopen-top garbage truck but at least it sounded like something whereas now it's like big vacuum cleaner plugged into a 220 outlet by mistake the throne (warbled shouting) and then, let's talk about okay they made it softer, show me some understeer my friend
the thing is, you used tobe able to go into a corner it would be neutral and rock it out why is the gt, oh my god! it has terminal understeering but you shouldn't be able to, at will, induce understeer in a gt-r. the whole point of agt-r was point to point. but the most impressive part to me was you can can be horked over to the right, you
quickly tothe left, back to right. man, it could just nail the transitions! now tires squeal. right. it still explodes out of the corners the way it used to. it it's got supernatural there's something going on there's a special sauce here confidence. you're so confident driving this car that you do things in it youwouldn't attempt and other cars problem being now
it understeers. (wheels screeching) yeah, i remember amg saying like we know this car very well we want to go around the nurburgring all the time we know everything about this car the one thing we can't figure out is how they can put that much power into a transmission and not have a blow apart because it sounds
like it's going to be explosive it still makes the weirdest noises it's also bathed in a$80 a quart specials liquid special sauce you know transmission was never the best part of the car and now in the intervening decades the world has really moved on so here we are cruisingat 45 miles an hour
this happened to me yesterday i got beaten by a prius ready what?- yeah. how can you get beaten by a prius? i'm going to show you 40 miles an hour, here tooling along that driving like a reasonable human being occasionally i'm guilty of doing that ok i'm going to floor it, ready? nothing, nothing nothing
dude, that was like a five five seconds to get a downshift in a car that does 0 to 100 in seven seconds over yeah, but those two seconds. what what happens afterwards isyou rear-end the prius but. i will say, to defend the transmission a little bit when you are using the paddles it's real good but it's not real good as an automatic and
it's a good manual dual-clutch nicer car than it was but still passionless no i disagree i found the last one because of its extreme capability and also at the way could transition it was a different kind of passion i actually love driving those cars i find the new one 2017 models have a lot less passion than
the gtr that came before and you know and you know, i guess the nismo version still kind of does that but wow i mean they put too much maxim this thing but at least it's better to look at. is it? know what (doors slamming) but the nsx, i think is beautiful from about 50 feet away. and in that color. that white gorgeous. this is a pearlescent metallic,
it's absolutely beautiful best color for the nsx. the problem with the acura is it falls apart when you start to look at the details for instance why would you have two different plastic hexagonal patterns on the grill three.- what? look, one, two, three. a third one. yeah, but that's metal right we shouldn't be consistent speaking of consistent look at this
gorgeous sweeping thickening arch and then the base of it it's like this giant tangram disaster yeah the pot at the end of the rainbow is a flying buttress and the beginning of the rainbows broken and let's talk about proportions for a minute okay i have here a piece of tape 'kay.
what are you doing to the acura? tell me what that is orange that is how high thebase of the windshield is on the gtr. this thing looks like a pickup truck next to it. it's huge! well i mean that's mid-engine proportions for ya and a big tall v6 with the transmission at the back and then it has to send half of that power
back to the front pushing everything up givingthis car all this frontal area and yet, despite having300cc more displacement and three fewer gears in its transmission these two cars get the same highway fuel economy say what it's actually says who and that would be the epa but that's just the epa number i mean, there's no way that'strue in the real
world hmm i wish we had a subsidiary called real mpg that tested real-world fuel economy using ghostbusters equipments strapped to the back of a car that sounds fun it does oh jonny, i love science. me too. you do?- yeah. okay, well. so the way this whole system
works is that ghostbusters thing on the back measures exactly what comes out the tailpipe who told you this? missions analytics people told me if you know exactly what comes out the tailpipe you can figure out what went into the engine so it's the most accurate way of measuring fuel economy. and i can see everything inreal
time over here look six parts per million of nitrous oxide eighteen parts per millionof oxides of nitrogen co, co2, you know, everything. i know exactly what's going on yeah, my question is what does suffering have to do with any of this the big suffering partis that they have to follow the same exact prescribed route
keeping up with traffic in real time and when we get on the highway in a couple minutes we have to average 70 miles an hour. so it's okay if we do 75 or 68. it doesn't matter whatthe speed limits that's all well and good, but it's 97 degrees outside why can't i turn on the air conditioning? you can't no no not now you can turn it
on later highway loop one allows the use of air conditioning but then highway loop 2 doesn't so it's again real world since when is science suffering science has always been about misery look you're sacrificing the individual for the greater good we already have global warming i'm putting the window down. - no!
no, that changes the coefficient. thank god for child locks please two more traffic lights and you get to air conditioning is spoiled brat or travel time getting out of the next one it's science. we have to follow this to the t or the results are invalid. i'm literally schfitzing. not only are yourschfitzing, the engine is too. as
soon as i get underboost, it goes crazy rich and that's to cool itself down. that's the curse of theport-injected turbo. ah, it's so cool to seethat in the real world please make it stop i can't take it the most up there's the nsx it's going to be your turn my turn yeah you gotta do the nsx
upshift, upshift! there are nine years to choose from, jonny. when we get near red line, he car will upshift itself. oh my god, nine of them there's seven more to go you know, youshould go upshift yourself. your fuel economyisn't even registering. and why did the engine turn itself off? 'cause it's in track mode what using real mpg an an owner might want to actualdrive
around the track mode i didn't say child mpg mpg, i said real world. you almost killed me by cooking my brain in the gt-r.- yeah, speaking of which why is the air conditioning on 59 because it's a hundred degrees outside but if you set it on 70 it will be perfectly comfortable in this car for you maybe upshift, for the love of god, this v6
sounds sounds like ass! i think this is more real world than whatever the hell wewere doing with that gt-r. 6200 rpm,oh for the love of god what does that do to the air drag? i don't know, but ihope it ruins our numbers. the numbers are ruined we're going to have to do this all again. what, why? look, i got 21 milesper gallon in the gtr yeah getting 11.1 so far i once
average 8.9 miles per gallon in the a mitsubishi evo 10, and i was hoping to go lowerthan that with the nsx, making this the least fuel-efficient japanese car i've ever driven all i'm trying to do is make a point honda has put a huge amount of money into this very expensive hybrid system that hasn't really helped in terms of
performance so at least we can demonstrate that it made a difference on fuel economy and you're making that very very difficult look all i'm trying to show is that the notion of a fuel-efficient supercar is idiotic effects of oxymoronic because people buy these carsspecifically to waste fuel we've already got global warming a fuel efficientmid-engine
performance car isn't gonna help anything you're right but you've destroyed the test! are you happy with yourself? incredibly so. oh yeah well, i'm actually really completely unbothered. i really just want to go take 'em for a drag race. oh totally okay so, i'm going to dothe launch mode in the nsx, which is incredibly easy
here's how it works all you do is being track mode left foot on the break,right foot on the throttle, and get off the brake. and the really cool thing is, because of the threeelectric assist motors it uses those for launch because the instant torque which is about 2100 rpms which has to be a record for like lowest rpm for a launch control of any car ever made and so it's it's repeatable,it's easy, it's simple and
doesn't stress out the clutch or the engine. that is not the case with the gt-r. so all i have to do isput all three buttons over there in on mode. same thing at the gas but it dumps it from 4000 if you hold it at 4,000 for more than about a second or so it dumps it and then smokes the clutch, flares to 5000, givesyou a huge error message and then of
and then aborts the whole thing. but at least unlike the original versions of this car it doesn't void the warranty sweet alright well i'm excited about this let's race them alright, i will countyou down from ready? five, four, three, two, one, go! (engines revving) what was that about your electric motors
helping you off the line, what? ok that was dead even want to come hop in the acura? sure. well, that was no surprise to anybody. what how obnoxious this engine sounds? no, that this thing in the gtr pretty much dead even straight line. would you please shift alright, alright. the most annoying sound known to
man. so, not a surprise. now look the nsx has eight more horsepower, nine more pounds speed of torque, and weighs 60 pounds less so real similar anything they were going to be deadeven, but interestingly enough the nsx has 540 fewer pounds on the front axle that's like twenty-five percent more weight the gtrs front tires have to do with it doesn't
surprise me at all considering the way this thing goes around corners i mean it is brilliant it is the unisex is party trick right at two electric motors upfront so does real-time torque vectoring and not only can the motor spin at different speeds but they can actually spinin different directions, theoretically
driving this is likedriving an arrow cart counter-intuitive, so in other words, if i want more grip through a corner more throttle it is very innovative evidence quiz a game-changing but it doesn't work really well and you really feel the low polar moment of inertia in this card the fact that the weight is really concentrated between the axles it
likes to change direction really quickly i think one thing they really left on the table was that the torque vectoring computer doesn't talk to the stability control computer so you turn in and the torque vectoring system up front will help to rotate the car every once in awhile it induces its own tank slapper it sort of that it throws you sideways
and then it doesn't use the torque vectoring to fix it uses the stability control system ie the brakes so you think the car has been given the hand of god it can be between the hammer dampers, and the torque vectoring of funny can do anything anyone wants to get this garbage direction and what does it use least common denominator breaks like
just stupid and yeah we look they tried a lot of weird things with this car like the brakes are actually connected to the brakes right you know this is this is break by wire um pretty damn good i mean they're very effective break especially the optional carbon disc you can't quite trail break this thing you can a regular car but you know what you're also we
come up the throttle you're getting a little bit of regent, it's kind of automatically trail braking. it's not consistent. right you don't know exactly what you're gonna get and the one failing of this car is like miniature cars handle really well to begin with when you add torque vectoring up front this should be the best hand
the mid-engine car ever and it's not now yeah like the r8 better possibly better the mclaren 570s. definitely better ferrari 488, definitely better. urkon, definitely better. and part of that is because this car has been under development and the changing development for 10 years it's almost like there was no one there
that had the gravitas to say we're gonna build a super car and we're gonna make a super car and it's gonna beat you up but it's gonna be the fastest supercar the alternatively it's going to be the most comfortable everyday usable supercars the world it's true there's no door pocket there's no thing here hold on would you like something to drink
didn't mean to interrupt your point but here i am the cup holder and i hope you don't have a garage door opener because that's going to end up on the floor to ya ya know you have a choice you can be hydrated or have a passenger pick one at least drives well i'll give it that it does dry very wound but it's not really quicker than a gtr
know that was the benchmark eight years ago it's the same speed as a gtr and it's marginally faster around her performance testing but what it really does go to show his kind of the fundamental competence of the gtr right and despite them doing everything in their power to soften and week in that car it's a hell
of a machine and i was really is this doesn't really fit book and you know back to packaging for a second if you look at that trunk that might have the smallest super car trunk on the market right yeah yeah it's been done in everyday supercar and there's the problem it's not an everyday supercar and it's not the world's best handling
supercar never it's somewhere in between and i could maybe excuse that but a two hundred thousand dollars yeah and then aside for the price the expectations and as x that's one of the most important sports cars in history and this is a while to see if the nsx tech can beat the gt-r's special sauce, we took them to the famedmazda raceway
laguna seca on a side note nsx was wearing optional very aggressive our arc-compound track tires for all of our performance testing gtr doesn't have an optional track tire watch the lab to find out if it needs one so the acura nsx isthree-quarters of a second dish faster around mazda raceway laguna seca than the gt-r, which is significant ish especially considering
those optional sticky tires but i'm a little bit disappointed i think it's a matter of expectations look i expected the nsx to change the way mid-engine cars handle and it didn't what acura did nail is that torque fill it's a huge change to the way turbocharged engines respond and an enormous benefit or the gtr our expectations for the nsx
everybody's expectations were here and the reality of this car is about here but the gtr while used to be here for 2017 nissan has brought it down to here and so by a slim margin than i would have thought the winner of this head-to-head is the acura nsx right that's this head-to-head though the next one might bewith a new nismo gt-r and
and a nsx type-r. who knows what will happen then until that hey say godzilla's dead look we know you don't have time to wait for the next episode of head-to-head that's why you need to head to motor trend on demand com that's where the latest episode always lives
this is the brand-new corvette grand sport the c7 corvette has been out for three long years bit of a love-hate relationship with it however this could be a happy medium goldilocks forehead because it has the ocean wide body dimension and the naturally aspirated from the stingray also painters tape on the front this is
the new career is the one with two turbochargers both to its three liters flat-six some of you watching my table that's our comparison 911 vs corvette which also hey it's a classic not only that you go back to the very first head weaver film involved and then new 991 911 vs a c6 grand sport and well the fortunate one separate the
mouth however fast forward 82 episodes and here we are again is history to repeat itself there's only one way to find out that's my line dude watch the latest episode of head-to-head right now on motor trend on demand
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