Road test assessment Acura NSX Type S 2022 | A tribute to itself, and a gift to the driver
When we say goodbye to modernity NSX, Acura see fit to leave the world with a parting gift. Like a final explosion, hybrid supercar only one Genre Variation WILL as a powerful farewell, with higher performance and improved handling. Still, it’s a rare gift for those who can afford its $171,495 starting price. first example sold for over a million dollarsand the remaining 299 units was scooped up in a day. Road Test Editor Zac Palmer Had Once In A Lifetime the chance to take the NSX Type S and run around DaytonaAnd this fall, our driveway has the honor of being in the presence of cars for several days.
And this NSX looks as cool as it rides, a sharp wedge that combines aesthetics of exoticism and upright evil. In particular, this one is medium in shape, with a matte charcoal finish, blacked-out badges, lots of it carbon fiber, sharp corners and odd-looking engine covers covering an odd engine, all under the glass directly behind the cockpit. While the car’s general shape is familiar to supercar fans from the mid-1970s onward, this Acura is unmistakable for something else, its polished exterior a reflection of the performance of the car. car.
Zac outlined the performance upgrades that set this Type S apart from the rest of the generation, but it’s good to know that this isn’t primarily about looks. Acura has upgraded the V6’s twin turbochargers, improved heat and air management, and lowered the gear ratio of the twin electric motors at the front. It has even higher capacity, higher output the battery provide energy for mixture system. The result is an amazing 600 horsepower and 492 pound-feet of torque. It’s surprisingly fast, but it’s hard to tell if it’s actually faster on a straight line than the inferior NSX. However, the overall driving experience is improved.
In the Type S, Acura has achieved extremely quick gear changes from the retuned nine-speed automatic transmission. It works well on its own, but the response you get from pulling one of the levers almost feels like the car has predicted your direction of movement and is extremely rewarding in terms of engagement. of the driver. It’s also quite generous in following your whims, allowing you to downshift to get you higher revs than you’d expect – in fact, Acura actually increased the rev limit when shifting. manual number to 1,500 rpm. What a great gift to give to a client as a parting gift. It also allows you to better enjoy the full range of your engine’s sound, from intake to exhaust.
And it’s a weird track, but one that elicits a faster beat, with the sound of the electric motor and the shrill revving of the engine behind you. You can also hear the turbochargers doing their job, the sound coming from behind your shoulder. Another annoying sound is wind noise. See how the rearview mirrors stand out from the junction between the A-pillar and the NSX’s door frame. It’s hard to miss them when glancing out the window, which makes them quite useful in maintaining your spatial awareness, but the chaos they create when they’re dragged through the air is word of mouth. constant reminders of their presence, even when your eyes are fixed. on the road ahead.
In terms of handling, the NSX Type S continues to deliver. It’s been a few years since I last got behind the wheel of an NSX, so it’s hard to quantify the results of the Type S’s improvements – the dampers are recalibrated with more shift modes. , a wider track and a retuned SH-AWD system – but it doesn’t garner more handling confidence than we might remember. It almost feels magnetized on the road. Between the tires, low center of gravity and all-wheel drive, this NSX feels as if it were physically steering, with impressive lateral grip and cornering stability. The NSX Type-S practically challenges you to push it harder in the bends, and as far as we can tell, doesn’t want to punish you for the slouching behavior.
It’s also low to the ground, so there’s always a concern about speed bumps or shifting from one driveway to another, though we never really scraped anything. But that low ground clearance really makes you feel connected to the road. Combined with the exceptionally tight and direct steering, as well as the way this car wraps you, it’s the kind of grounded, tactile pleasure you remember from your best laps on the track. karts. All in all, it’s a strange feeling for a modern car, like shaving the road with an electric razor, with a hint of an open-wheel racer feel.
But for such a tight and involved car, it’s still comfortable on the road, with that dynamic damping band coming in handy when you put it in Comfort mode on rougher pavements. . The main drawback is in its size – you have to be comfortable with the limited space this cockpit is for, which may not be ideal for every body type. And despite the improvements to the steering system, not every part of the NSX has been modernized for the vehicle to leave the factory. The basic infotainment system is a relief in a time when in-car technology can feel clunky. That is, aside from the volume control on the device itself — no one likes touch sliders and we would have preferred an older style knob instead. The scroll wheel to the left of the steering wheel is a much better solution. However, this technological and slightly small interface is a reminder of the NSX era, a timestamp of an era when the nameplate was revived and now a thing of the past.
The NSX is one of those creatures that, as Hunter S. Thompson would put it, “too strange to live, too rare to die.” Thankfully, it looks like we’ll have an electric NSX at some point in the future. Not sure how long we’ll have to wait, but for the time being, at least Chevy will be able to surpass us (we hope) with its combination escort ship E-Ray, promises to deliver some quirky but hair-raising high-performance driving experiences. However, it won’t replicate the unique NSX experience, which Acura faithfully amplified in the final installment of the S-Class and will be hard to replace in the electric age.
While we have no doubt that Acura can continue to deliver on anything this successor may be in the looks and handling of a supercar to match, at the same time it will generate a fair amount of proper excess power from the electric powertrain, but we wonder how it can capture this eerie feeling of difference offered by this generation, especially embodied in the Type S.
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