97 Esprit V8 - Car & Driver
#3 |
Twice as many
pistons. Not twice as ingratiating.
Since its debut in Paris
in 1975, the Giugiaro-penned Esprit, among the world's supercars, has
always been something of a red-headed stepchild. Not for its
wedge-of-Colby shape -- which today, frankly, is beginning to look a
little moldy -- but for its four-cylinder engine. In Club Supercar, the
price of admission has always been at least twice that many pistons,
though a turbo'd six might pass muster if it hailed from Stuttgart.
Twenty-two years into the
Esprit's life, Lotus has finally fitted this cuneiform conundrum with an
alloy powerplant of appropriate snootiness: four camshafts, 32 valves,
eight cylinders, two Garrett T25 turbochargers, and a flat-plane
crankshaft. Get all that hardware whirring harmoniously and it whips up
350 horsepower -- 50 more than the raucous 2.2-liter four-banger
produced in the old Esprit S4S.
Of course, flat cranks
are prone to drone and emit hard-edged metallic thrashing noises that
are -- and this must be a coincidence -- remarkably like the noises
emanating from Lotus's peaky old K-car-ish 2.2. With the throttle wide
open, the new V-8 conjures 89 dBA of cacophony, which is within an aural
hair of matching the trucklike din inside a Dodge Viper GTS.
Partly because of the
turbos, the V-8's response isn't particularly viperish, either.
Sub-3000-rpm torque -- the sort of grunt you'd like while tootling
around corners in second gear -- is largely AWOL. In fact, the V-8
disappoints on almost every count until you're really cuffing it hard,
running to the 6900-rpm redline in each gear (where the vibration,
incidentally, sets interior trim bits to buzzing in sympathy). Which is
also when you notice the countryside beginning to blur past in dizzying
spurts, like an 8mm home movie that has vaulted its sprockets.
Though the new V-8 may
not sound Ferrari-esque, it certainly inspires the Esprit to supercar
velocities. Sixty mph now manifests in a spine-straightening 4.1 seconds
-- three-tenths quicker than the old four-cylinder Esprit S4S and
seven-tenths sooner than the still-older Esprit Turbo SE. In fact, that
0-to-60 time places this Lotus only a tenth of a second behind a Viper
GTS, which, of course, has the advantage of two more cylinders and 100
extra horsepower. The Esprit V-8 decimates the quarter-mile in 12.7
seconds at 112 mph -- three-tenths and 4 mph better than the old S4S.
And it rushes to 150 mph 10.3 seconds sooner than the S4S, placing this
Lotus only one second shy of the 0-to-150-mph time of, say, a Ferrari
F355.
Top speed is up, too,
from the S4S's 162 mph to a more provocative 173 mph, which comes with
the V-8 bawling and fuming at 6100 rpm. Running at that clip around our
standard four-mile high-banked oval, the Esprit was stable -- not
exactly a rock, but as confidently planted as a C5 Corvette running at a
like speed.
What's more, the Esprit
V-8 would have logged even quicker results were its shifter not so
diabolical. The linkage is stiff and imprecise and undergoes as many
jerks and seizures between throws as Mark Fidrych. At random intervals,
we were locked out of first and reverse. Helping not at all is a heavy
clutch -- with abrupt takeup in the last inch of travel, plus sufficient
driveline windup that you soon learn never to jump too quickly out of
the throttle lest you snap your passenger's head. Around town, the
Esprit resists being driven smoothly.
Whether it's the fault of
the new 18-inch Michelin rear tires we can't say, but this Esprit
steered less confidently than previous examples. Although the steering
is generally progressive and nicely weighted, it is hesitant to
self-center and is not altogether diligent about seeking straight ahead,
a nuisance on bumpy interstates.
Of course, what Lotuses
do best is handle. Fortunately, the new V-8 increases the Esprit's
weight by only 98 pounds and exaggerates its rear bias by a mere two
percent. Skidpad grip hangs steady at a tendon-popping 0.94 g, same as
the S4S, same as a Porsche 911 Turbo S. Pitch this Esprit hard into an
on-ramp and it's as flat and vice-free as an Iowa councilman. In sharper
turns, a steady throttle will induce benign understeer; provoke the
pedal and you'll trigger a couple of don't-tread-on-me warning twitches,
but the car remains less likely to swap ends than an Acura NSX.
The ride is acceptable by
current supercar standards, but if you live near truly rough roads,
beware: The suspension condones approximately one inch of supple flex
before the dampers stiffen into solid-steel I-beams. Fortunately, the
narrow seats are comfortable for four-hour stints, though the skinny
footwells taper inward so that the driver's left foot has nowhere to
rest except atop -- sometimes behind -- the clutch.
The Esprit's Brembo
calipers -- as big as individual loaves of pumpernickel -- look and act
like racing brakes. They work better as friction builds. At first, pedal
effort is high, but if you're willing to flatten a Florsheim to engage
the new Kelsey-Hayes ABS, you can dispose of 70 mph in only 165 feet.
That's not far off our supercar standard of 151 feet, set by a 911 Turbo
S.
Discriminating
pedestrians still go berserk when they spy an Esprit, and they often
guess at a sticker price twice the reality. Our car looked notably
fetching and malevolent in Bat Masterson black, a shade that helps
camouflage the tack-on wheel-well flares. Alas, peering out of an Esprit
is still akin to peeking through a gun slit in a dark bunker, so you
won't see many passersby gesturing an appreciative thumbs up. You also
won't see concrete parking stanchions, one of which smote our test car's
wing a concussive lick.
It's nice that Lotus is
holding the line on the Esprit's price. The V-8's base, including a
$1300 guzzler tax (but before luxury tax), is $81,620. Compare that with
the $80,645 sticker on the 1990 Turbo SE and you can see that the asking
price, over the past seven years, has risen negligibly. =Of course, the
car has looked the same all those years, too. But that may not matter.
Only 155 Esprit V-8s are earmarked for U.S. buyers this year. Heck, if
you were to gather every Esprit ever built, you'd have only 9383 of the
things -- about the number of Explorers that Ford produced in one week
last July.
That this is the
best-assembled and fastest Esprit in the model's 22-year history is
undisputed. The paint on our raven bombshell, for instance, was the best
we've seen on any Lotus. But the Esprit's bizarre ergonomics -- just try
to operate the Alpine stereo, we dare you -- plus its pancake-flat
windscreen and its archaic architecture conspire to advertise this car's
age a little too freely. We can't help wondering what Lotus's engineers,
given the fiscal wherewithal, might accomplish given a clean sheet of
foolscap.
Verdict
Highs: Sheer velocity, as in 0 to 60 in 4.1 seconds and a 173-mph top
speed.
Lows: Heavy clutch, balky shifter, thrashy idle, cramped cockpit.
The Verdict: Though the V-8 places the Esprit foursquare in supercardom,
the rest of the vehicle is showing its 22-year age.
By John Philips
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97 Esprit V8 - Car & Driver
#4 |
Ferrari and Porsche
get some surprising company.
Lotus has always been the
poor relation in the exotic world of supercars. To Americans, the name
doesn't carry the excitement of Ferrari or Porsche. In the days of its
founder, the late Colin Chapman, Lotus built its reputation in Formula 1
racing. It won seven world constructors' championships, an achievement
exceeded only by Ferrari.
Chapman's philosophy of
building simple, light, good-handling cars extended to the Lotus street
machines, the most enduring of which is the Esprit. When it first
appeared in 1976, it was relatively inexpensive and, with 160 horsepower
from its 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine, a competitive proposition as an
uncompromising racing-style, mid-engined two-seater.
Time added price, engine
displacement, a turbocharger, and the resulting power increases. The
wedgy Esprit body, so stylish and in vogue when designed by Giorgetto
Giugiaro in the 1970s, was cleverly transformed in 1988 into a softer,
more rounded shape by the British designer Peter Stevens, who was later
to pen the McLaren F1 road car.
The Esprit still looks
good two decades later, but a four-cylinder engine was a turn-off for
supercar buyers tempted by a Ferrari V-8 or even a Dodge Viper's V-10.
Never mind that with 300 horsepower the turbocharged 2.2-liter Lotus had
the best specific output of any production piston engine and
acceleration to match a Ferrari F355's. But it was too rough, too peaky
-- and too prosaic. The Esprit S4S finished last in our July 1995
comparison ("The Supercar Olympics"), and it was the powertrain that
helped put it there.
Today, despite the
continuing turmoil of Lotus's ownership -- an apparently never-ending
saga -- the Esprit has been given a heart transplant. It gets a
3.5-liter V-8. And not someone else's high-volume production motor but a
completely new one, the Type 918, designed and built by Lotus in just 27
months. Lotus has been primarily considered a chassis specialist, but
these days the major part of its engineering business (bigger by far
than the business of making cars) is engine development. Currently, it
has five different engine projects in the works. Lotus is sworn to
secrecy about its clients, but we know that at least two of these
engines are destined for General Motors. The new V-8 is a separate
project, for Lotus's own use, though the company also hopes to sell it
for other purposes, including a high-performance Lotus variant of an
existing production sedan.
On paper, this is simply
another 90-degree four-cam 32-valve aluminum-block V-8. There is no
leading-edge technology here, no variable valve timing or
variable-length intake manifolds. It does have two small Garrett T25
turbochargers, which not only produce the required power characteristics
but also help in meeting increasingly tough noise laws in Europe -- and
allow Lotus to run a turbocharged car in international GT racing.
The engine's special
claims are its size and weight. "Fully dressed" with turbos and
ancillaries, the V-8 weighs 485 pounds. It is among the lightest of its
kind and the most compact. It is designed so that everything is
contained within a cube that takes up less space than the old
four-cylinder did and is low enough for fore-and-aft or transverse
installation in a sedan. Nothing is for show. The red crackle-finish
covers on top of the engine are the intake-manifold castings, which
include the injector rails.
As used in the Esprit,
the new V-8 produces 350 hp. It has much more potential. With
intercoolers, another 100 hp could be available. Trouble is that the
Esprit's five-speed Renault gearbox could not cope with that, and there
are few off-the-shelf alternatives available. So Lotus has concentrated
on providing something that the previous turbo Esprits never had -- a
wide spread of torque. The maximum of 295 pound-feet arrives at 4250
rpm, but there are 275 pound-feet at 2500 rpm.
This makes for an
altogether better drive. Test figures for 0 to 60 mph and 0 to 100 mph
are up there with the 300-hp S4S (the Esprit V-8 is some 75 pounds
heavier). Low-rpm acceleration is improved dramatically, and the 178-mph
top speed that the makers claim puts it in the company of the Ferrari
F355 and the Porsche 911 Turbo. Whereas the S4S's four-cylinder engine
provided a perfectly unwelcome example of turbo lag, the arrival of the
V-8's boost is not noticeable. Its power delivery is delightfully
progressive, making the V-8 not only a very quick car on a winding road
but also a lot easier to handle, especially in the wet.
This engine is efficient
but not charismatic. It has a flat-plane crankshaft, like that of a
racing V-8. As a result, it vibrates at idle and makes a hard-toned but
muted noise when revved. It still sounds like a four-cylinder. Lotus may
have matched Ferrari with a V-8, but it does not make the same music.
The Esprit V-8 complies
with the European Union's upcoming 75-decibel "drive by" noise
regulation, but it isn't quiet inside. The engine booms within the
fiberglass body, and there is considerable wind noise at highway speeds.
In this and other respects, the Esprit is showing its age. The
tight-fitting leather-lined cockpit is unchanged, which means not much
room in the footwells and none at all for items bigger than a pair of
sunglasses. Visibility, other than straight ahead, is restricted, though
we understand that the big hooped spoiler that further obscures the view
to the rear will be an option for U.S.-market cars.
The gearbox has a taller
top gear (25.5 mph per 1000 rpm) and the added refinement of synchromesh
on reverse gear, but the gearshift remains a disappointment. The linkage
was rearranged to get around the new engine. The shift is stiff and
slow, and it is reluctant to go into reverse. Fortunately, the engine's
ample torque demands less gearshift rowing than before.
We had no cause to
complain about the handling of the previous Esprits, and if anything,
the V-8 handles even better. The power steering, first introduced on the
S4, is ideally weighted. Cornering is race-car sharp, yet the ride is
surprisingly compliant. Brake-pedal feel had been criticized in the S4S,
so a new vacuum servo and Kelsey-Hayes ABS have been adopted, though the
Brembo brakes are unchanged. Now the feel matches their efficiency.
Although a 2.0-liter
four-cylinder Esprit continues to be offered in Europe as the GT3, the
V-8 becomes Lotus's only offering in the United States. The new car was
due in July with a base price of $85,640. The more complex electronics
required for OBD II forced up that price, but it's still significantly
lower than that of the Ferrari F355 and the Porsche 911 Turbo, with
which the Lotus Esprit can now compete on more even terms.
By Ray Hutton
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Supercar Olympics - Car &
Driver #8 |
Introducing five
predatory athletes from five countries, all with carnivorous appetites.
They'll eat your lunch, your wallet, possibly you, too.
In 1897, Captain S.A.
Swiggett wrote a book called The Bright Side of Prison Life. It occurred
to me to take a copy to southern Ohio, where we were testing five
supercars, any one of which could get me arrested while cruising in
second gear on eastern interstates. Our assault on Ohio's scenic Hocking
Hills would be swift and international in flavor. In total, we had 1745
horsepower on tap, from $472,000 worth of exotica. And our five supercar
contestants represented five countries: America (Dodge Viper RT/10),
Germany (Porsche 911 Turbo) Great Britain (Lotus Esprit S4s), Italy
(Ferrari F355), and Japan (Acura NSX-T). Think of it as the Olympics of
supercars.
The newest weaponry on
the supercar scene--the Porsche and Ferrari--triggered this comparison
test. In making our other selections, there seemed no good reason to
include anything with a price higher than the Ferrari's $128,800, and
all five voting editors agreed it wouldn't have changed the outcome
anyway. Before the Anglophiles complain, remember that the McLaren F1 is
not legal here. Subscribers enamored of Italian machinery should note
that the Ferrari F50 isn't ready yet, and no Bugatti EB110 has yet been
sold in America. Red-white-and-blue patriots should similarly recall
that the Corvette ZR-1, which admittedly would have been a
better-rounded ambassador than the Dodge Viper, went the way of the
passenger pigeon one month before this story would appear.
Our vehicles thus
assembled, it was curious to discover that, quite without trying, we
wound up with no similar engine architectures. The engines include a
single-turbo in-line four, a twin-turbo flat-six, a DOHC V-6, a 40-valve
V-8, and a pushrod V-10. The Lotus, the Ferrari, and the NSX are mid-engined.
The Porsche is rear-engined. The Viper is front-engined. From a styling
standpoint--at least according to Ohio and Michigan citizens who rushed
us at every fuel stop--not one of these vehicles looks very much like
any other.
So what did we hope to
discover in one week of driving? We needed to know which was the
fastest, and we found out after just one day at Ohio's sprawling
Transportation Research Center. The intangibles were trickier. Which car
is easiest to drive at nine-tenths on public roads? Which impresses
onlookers most? Which is the most fun to drive, never mind its
performance envelope? Which is the most potent and comfortable
long-distance tourer? Which is the most passionate? Which feels the
least likely to spend its life atop a service hoist?
It took a week of nonstop
driving and late-night arguing to find out, during which interval we
pushed the vehicles hard enough that both the NSX and the Viper had to
be retrieved from ditches. Said C/D godfather Brock Yates, as he brushed
pieces of hemlock bough and sandstone grit off his vest: "At about 90
percent of their capabilities, all five of these cars are hugely
competent and benign, lulling their drivers into Fangio-like confidence.
But put one toe over the edge and there's an excellent chance you'll get
to help refurnish your insurance agent's new home in Grosse Pointe."
Or, to put it another
way, begin memorizing passages from The Bright Side of Prison Life.
Fifth Place: Lotus
Esprit S4s
Twenty years ago, our first test of a Lotus Esprit offered this keen
insight: "The factory is frank about the Esprit's unsuitability for
grand touring . . . the twin tanks should be filled with gas destined to
be burned in bursts of back-road berserking."
Not much has changed in
two decades, although thanks to a larger Garrett turbo and larger inlet
valves, the Lotus's maniacally peaky 2.2-liter four-banger now delivers
an even more berserk steady-state 285 hp and briefly as much as 300 hp,
if the weather on Route 595 near Logan, Ohio, is sufficiently cool and
dry. When the turbo kicks in at around 2700 rpm, it's like being smacked
in the back of the head with a warped nine-iron. A kind of blurry trauma
ensues. Full boost in the rain will light up the rear tires in first,
second, and third gears. At which point, the Esprit's tail yaws right on
crowned roads, the driver countersteers like Damon Hill, then the whole
mess straightens out after a vicious snap that leaves onlookers
wondering if you've lost your mind or are just insanely rich. Or both.
The 60-mph barrier
topples in 4.4 seconds, making the Esprit quicker in a straight line
than a 405-hp Corvette ZR-1, which possibly did not amuse Detroit
engineers back when GM owned Lotus.
There is much about the
Esprit that is race-car-like. The pedals are skewed inboard and are so
close together that Simpson's best Nomex booties are recommended. The
steering is knife-like and fast, although it is a great match for the
car's flat, neutral cornering stance. Once you push through the surging
and sucking power assist for the Brembo brakes, you have exactly the
pedal feel you'd want in Turn One at Long Beach.
Far less race-ready is
the Renault-based gear linkage, a high-effort yet mushy affair. "It's
like making a long-distance call to Paris to make a gearchange," says
Kevin Smith. It is also fragile, not a good trait in turbo cars, which
encourage quick shifting to keep the boost on the boil. This may explain
why second gear was no longer with us at the end of this test. Similarly
unrefined is the Esprit's powerplant, which bangs and bucks as if it
were a 2.2-liter K-car engine forced to produce the highest specific
output of any in-line four in America. Not a far-fetched analogy.
Still, the Esprit's
cuneiform figure--its waist-high profile, even its gaudy wing that
overreaches the rear bumper--makes onlookers gawk and chase, although
they rarely know what they're looking at. They mouth the word "Lotus,"
then say, "Oh, the Pretty Woman car." But they always assume that it
costs more than its $80,340 base.
Cranky, quirky, and as
breakable as Waterford crystal, the Lotus finished last but by only two
points. It is eccentric (hell, when did you last hear of a supercar
getting a 27-mpg EPA highway rating?), a lean point-and-squirt machine
for nasty, unpredictable roads. Such as the wicked little lanes around
Norwich. Think of it as half Formula Ford made street-legal, half
Barbara Woodhouse on PCP.
Fourth Place: Dodge
Viper RT/10
The Dodge Viper is the antithesis of the Lotus. Where the Lotus is a
kind of .22-caliber Olympic target pistol, the Viper is simply an
16-inch cannon yanked off the deck of the USS Missouri. The Lotus is the
lightest car in the group, the Viper is the heaviest. The Lotus has the
smallest engine in the group, the Viper's 488-cube thunderbox is the
most mammoth passenger-car powerplant in production. The Lotus offers
the fastest lane-change capability, the Viper possesses the slowest.
Yet in this comparo, the
Viper occupies fourth place rather than fifth. Here are three reasons:
(1) big torque exists at any engine revolution, (2) its shape evokes
involuntary seizures among all onlookers, and (3) it has the lowest
sticker price in all of supercardom.
Of course, there are good
reasons for the Viper's bargain-basement $62K tariff. No roof, for
instance. And a hose-it-down plasticky interior with low-rent
switchgear. And a ride like a Ford F150's. And a full-throttle exhaust
blat that sounds like a tornado ripping out the seams of a Holy Rollers'
revival tent. All of which we graciously accept, because it's precisely
what Chrysler promised back in 1992. What we didn't count on was this
car's spooky steering and villainous handling.
The Viper hunts and darts
under braking. It resolutely follows even minute irregularities in the
road. Its rear end steps out when you poke the power. And, as Csaba
Csere describes it: "There's a moment where nothing happens between
turn-in and when the tires actually hook up. It saps your confidence if
you're hustling."
The snaky handling ("This
is the only car I've ever spun on the skidpad," notes Don Schroeder) is
likely a result of unfinished development. God knows, the Viper has all
the rubber it could ever want, and its weight bias is the closest to
perfect in this group--an astounding claim for a car whose nose carries
an engine the size of John Madden's refrigerator.
In many ways, owning a
Viper is like owning a powerful motorcycle. "Without a real top, it's
too reliant on the weather," says Kevin Smith, who also noted that
removing and replacing those rudimentary canvas pieces is a tedious,
fussy, two-man job. "Yeah, it's the world's largest Fat Boy Harley,"
added Yates, "and you might even want to put your feet down roaring into
turns--this is the only non-ABS-equipped car in the bunch." Also the
only one without even a single airbag.
Although it's tied with
the 911 Turbo in the horsepower wars, the Viper accelerates to 60 mph
and through the quarter-mile half a second slower. Put 400 horsepower in
nearly any street car and you might want to think about four-wheel
drive, a concept that was implemented in Weissach but not at the New
Mack Assembly Plant.
The Viper is like using a
Louisville Slugger to play ping-pong. You wind up with drastic, if
clumsy, results. It is big, crude, deafening, and something of a
cartoon. "On the other hand," noted Yates in the logbook, "every time
we'd show up in a small town, the locals clumped around one car and one
car only: the one built in Detroit."
Third Place: Ferrari
F355
For Ferrari, the F355 is a radical departure. Don't believe us? Consider
one entry in its logbook: "This car has a climate-control system that
really works; in fact, it works better than the Porsche's."
C/D has traditionally
been slow to praise Ferraris, in part because the manufacturer's
performance claims tend to be inflated, in part because the cars have
been impractical and unreliable, in part because their sticker prices
gave us nosebleeds.
So check out the stats on
the company's newest and cheapest offering: 0-to-60 and quarter-mile
times only 0.2 second behind the 400-hp Viper's. A stopping distance so
close to the Porsche's that Stuttgart's engineers may pull a full
Jonestown Kool-Aid klatch. And skidpad grip that, at 1.02 g, not only
surpasses everything in this comparo but also bests the company's own
street-legal racer, the F40.
Add to that terrific
steering with power assist as nearly perfect as the NSX's, not to
mention better visibility. Plus a ride that is taut without becoming
harsh, not what you'd expect from a one-g suspension. Plus an 8500-rpm
redline that produces an engine howl so sonorous, so much like a lightly
muffled F1 car, that the driver doesn't really miss the optional radio.
(Hey, you want everything for only $128,800?)
"In the details of this
car, Ferrari has done a lot of what Acura did to define itself, way back
when," wrote Kevin Smith. Indeed, the F355 offers adjustable shocks,
unique in this group. It has firm seats that can be twisted into a wide
variety of supportive shapes, plus a sophisticated exhaust bypass that
meets emissions regs without strangling the 375-horse V-8.
Although it's on such a
clear course to modernizing its cars, Maranello ought to continue
improving them. The gated, metallic shifter is still a chore and a
gratuitous anachronism. The steering wheel, although adjustable, gives
you the choice of either a good driving position or viewing the
instruments, but not both. Moreover, this is the second F355 we've
tested whose sticky throttle made it impossible to pick up the power
smoothly in mid-corner. And this engine's 24 inlet valves are so deft at
swallowing accelerants that the F355's cruising range (when the fuel
light began to glow) averaged just under 200 miles. (Yes, we were
driving like Gerhard Berger, though not as neatly. But fuel economy
worse than a 488-cubic-inch Viper? Don't tell the Vatican.)
Only two points out of
second place, the Ferrari was the Big Surprise in this comparo. "If the
thing just cost a little less--say, the same as the Porsche," noted
Kevin Smith, "it would easily have been in second place. In fact, I
might have voted it the winner."
Second Place: Acura
NSX-T
For the last five years, we've regularly gushed and spouted and
pontificated about the essential goodness, the quintessential purity, of
Acura's NSX. So don't be shocked that this, the least powerful car in
our super five (and also the slowest to 60 mph and through the
quarter-mile), finished only three points behind the fastest, most
powerful car in the group.
How can this happen?
Here's how: track numbers tell you zip about a car's usable performance
in Ann Arbor traffic, and they tell you little about making nine-tenths
passes on the blind, downhill, off-camber turn just outside Burr Oak
Lodge.
The Acura NSX is as
user-friendly as the tumblers on a Mosler vault. Check out the expansive
view from its low, forward cockpit. Try finding a clutch and shifter
combo that so telepathically slides gears into place. See if you can
locate any seats that are both this comfortable and this adept at
distributing side forces. Locate a steering rack that delivers this much
feedback sans kickback. Identify a removable targa top that can be
stowed onboard without reducing cargo-carrying capacity by one cubic
inch.
Built with the same
monumental attention to ergonomic detail as a Honda Accord, the NSX
sometimes takes a knock or two for being too familiar, at least inside,
where some of the switchgear is pedestrian and the cockpit is an
unnecessarily dour arena in which to celebrate so much fun underfoot. On
this trip--for the first time--editors fantasized openly, if not
vociferously, about obtaining more power, especially when the car was
asked to launch itself out of tight uphill esses and switchbacks. One
editor suggested a supercharger, another wanted a 3.0-liter V-8, a third
asked whether a streetable version of Honda's racing V-10 might fit.
Which, in turn, made us wonder whether a six-speed gearbox, rather than
the mandatory five, might also make life easier.
At $86,642, the NSX is no
longer the striking bargain it was 60 months ago. Still, where the Viper
offers a huge bang for the buck, the NSX is big civil subtlety for the
buck. This is the brain surgeon's approach to go-fast operations. From
its bird-bones suspension bits to its lacy aluminum skin, the NSX
delivers supercar precision without beating up its owner.
But beware: Although you
can throw it around; you can also throw it away.
First Place: Porsche
911 Turbo
It's the kind of formula you'd concoct in high-school study hall. Take a
chassis four inches shorter than a Jeep Wrangler's, then install a
twin-turbo engine with, say, 400 horsepower hung way the hell behind the
rear wheels. The result should be something akin to a golf cart powered
by two General Electric turbines--the sort of car that would crash as
you backed it out of your driveway.
Instead, the outcome is
the most obscenely fast and sophisticated Porsche since Weissach loosed
upon civilized society the all-wheel-drive 959 nine years ago. The new
911 Turbo is our choice as this planet's most eminently practical
supercar, the quickest A-to-B four-wheeled transport to alight on
American highways.
About now, you're
probably muttering, "What about the Ferrari F40 or Lamborghini Diablo
VT?" Forget 'em. If you've got 3.7 seconds to spare, the 911 Turbo will
hand you 60 mph. That leaves the F40 half a second in the dust. Or, if
you've got some empty road near your house, this Porsche will swallow
1320 feet of it 1.7 seconds sooner than your neighbor's Lamborghini
Diablo VT.
Not that those
comparisons mean much anyway. The nervous F40 and the fat Diablo are
30-minute cars. After that, you'd like a cool drink and a brief nap. Not
so the 911 Turbo. Cruising around town, this Porsche is more docile than
a Carrera 2, partly because it's quieter and partly because the standard
luxo bits inside are more posh. And when you finally do tip into the KKK
turbos, there's no tire squeal, no exhaust roar, no darty nose. Just a
seamless, silent, drama-free delivery of endless torque, accompanied by
a rush of scenery that within two or three seconds takes on a vaguely
hallucinatory hue, as if the nearby trees were all recently vandalized
by Matisse.
"Twice on brief
straightaways," noted one editor in the Turbo's logbook, "I glanced down
and discovered I had innocently dialed up 130 mph. I'd have been
horrified if I hadn't had Porsche's brakes beneath me."
Not quite matching this
machine's warp-drive potential for effortless velocity are the clutch
and steering--one is uncommunicative, the other is simply too light.
Porsche intentionally removed 25 percent of the clutch-pedal effort,
plus 15 percent of its travel. And as for the feathery steering, well,
maybe it's those new 8-by-18-inch front wheels or the GT2's racing
power-assist. Whatever the reason, the more rudimentary Carrera 2's
steering remains the best sports rack in the world, and we wish the
engineers hadn't messed with it.
Ditto the Turbo's
security system. An ignition bypass is triggered by pressing a button on
the key fob. It sounds simple enough, but you can't imagine the driver's
fury when he inserts the key, twists it for liftoff, and absolutely
nothing happens. Can you say "gimcrackery"?
We dubbed the Porsche
"the lazy man's supercar," at least on the roads of southern Ohio.
Although the Turbo is the second-heaviest car in this quintet, Porsche
has pretty well masked its traditional tail-wagging-the-dog handling.
Give our drivers 400 horsepower plus astounding wet-weather grip and
they will--using one hand and half a head of concentration--keep up with
any other supercar in this group. "It's almost like cheating," wrote
Kevin Smith.
We'll come back to this
wonderment, in part to report more definitively on some un-Teutonic
assembly glitches. Our test car suffered an inoperative "Litronic"
low-beam lamp, a snapped-off hood latch, a sunroof that ate fuses like
popcorn, and a glovebox that randomly flopped open and spilled its
considerable guts.
Still, no piece of
machinery producing 400 horses has any right to feel so tame and
violence-free. Said one editor, "I can't explain it, unless this car is
powered by dilithium crystals." The new Porsche 911 Turbo is the German
engineers' 176-mph answer to whatever the question was, or will be.
Captain Swiggett should be told
By John Philips
Verdicts
Lotus Esprit S4s
Highs: Efficient and potent engine, neutral handling, still a dazzling
silhouette.
Lows: Hunt-and-peck shifter, shoebox cockpit, dreadful visibility.
The Verdict: Aging but lithe Brit in search of dedicated Anglophile
enthusiast.
Dodge Viper RT/10
Highs: Thor's own torque, convertible top; a gawker magnet.
Lows: Mixmaster ride, ragged assembly, knife-in-the-back handling.
The Verdict: Blockbuster mystique that surpasses its price but also its
real usefulness.
Ferrari F355
Highs: Flexible and symphonic V-8, limpet-like grip; the status slaves'
hall-of-famer.
Lows: Fifties-vintage shifter, stratospheric price; talk to your
insurance agent.
The Verdict: Maranello's best-ever all-around sports car. No bull.
Acura NSX-T
Highs: Surgical steering, magical shifter, seats that satisfy all known
anatomies.
Lows: Near-stark interior, some mundane-looking switchgear, but that's
about it.
The Verdict: A comfortable 162-mph slot car available for everyday use.
Porsche 911 Turbo
Highs: Sumptuous luxo amenities, effortless velocity, astounding
brakes.
Lows: Feathery steering, gimcrack security system, shifter that can
confuse.
The Verdict: Ear-pinning performance, probably the planet's most
practical supercar.
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