Meant to post this a few weeks ago...

I was reading an interview of the Maserati CEO in a magazine (forget which magazine and I can't find the article online) on a flight. It touched on various things, but one thing he kept emphasizing was that Maserati strives to build fun and engaging cars with high performance levels. He said it's silly to have goals of being the most powerful or having the best straight-line numbers because you'll only be at the top for a day, until another car company makes something more powerful.

I know Maserati probably doesn't make THE most fun and engaging cars relative to their competition (or maybe they do... I don't know). I also know some of you might disagree with this (or not, since most of you own S2000s), but I'm with him 100%. 0-60 in 4.4 or 4.5. 1/4 mile in 13.5 or 14.0. 400 HP or 450 HP. Who cares!

My S2000 gets beat in the numbers game compared to many new sports cars, but it's more fun and engaging than all of them - easily. And forget about it on a twisty road!

The complaining by some about the new NSX's power and projected performance numbers (keyword - projected) gives me a chuckle. There's WAY more to it than that.

 

I think most people agree with you, as do I. However, and I mean this with all due respect, this topic is the gear head world's newest buzzword/idea, akin to "form over function" or "horsepower per liter." It's something that sounds just obscrue enough that the uninitiated think, "Ooh, how intriguing. Tell me more."

It's like, we get it; you like cars for a deeper reason than bragging rights. Again, no offense intended, and I'm not so much bothered by your post as I am just the general frequency with which this sentiment is repeated. But it's like every time someone announces this opinion they're sort of proclaiming it as if it's some novel new ethos that only a select few deep thinkers dare embrace. "Look out, conformists, we reject your reality and substitute our own." What? No WAY! How courageous! It's like you guys are the chosen few who have been unplugged from the Matrix while the rest of the great unwashed are left to wallow in their simple-mindedness.

Now, with respect to Maserati, I can't help but call bullshit to some extent. Yeah, sure, Maserati doesn't care about the outcome of a competition they couldn't win even if they wanted to with their bloated old man cars whose only shining characteristic is a nice engine that's stifled by the aforementioned old man chassis it's been plopped into.

Sure, Maserati, and I could totally date a super model if I was into that. I just prefer fat girls.

 

I think most of us complaining about the new NSX are talking about exactly what you are saying. It seems like they were chasing numbers instead of driver engagement/fun. It sounds like a highly capable and technically advanced car but it's lacking soul and character.

The S2000 is a very fun car, it also has a very characterful engine and design. Is it a perfect car? No, of course not but to me it gets a lot closer than the NSX. It's a lot easier to warm up to.

Honestly, I feel like I need to go buy a new Miata though, even though it's probably slower than the S2000, it just seems like they have really captured the essence of the sports car (again).

It would be hard to give up having 400+ horsepower though... Even though I rarely get to really use it, I like knowing it's there.

 

Also, let's not forget that the s2000 was fast by all accounts when it came out. There were not a lot of cars that could kick its butt on a road course that were anywhere in the same ballpark pricing wise.

 

Mr. E.G.

I think it's called ending the horsepower wars. We have to have some reason to come down off of this 500hp+ world that we live in, it's a hell of a lot better of a reason than "efficiency or practicality".

I get a lot of flack for pushing high hp per dollar cars around here but first hand experience says they are great but I can see both sides of the coin, I still have an S2000 (again).

 

I think it's a balance. I wouldn't chance 30 hp on my 470 but I am not going to tell you 470 and 700 don't feel different.

 

There's a lot of merit to the "NSX Is Underwhelming" argument and though its not entirely about the numbers, they do play a big part in driving what I think is the most common and easily accessible knock on any car that claims to be anything other than a plain A-B appliance: unfulfilled potential. By its definition, potential ("latent qualities or abilities that may be developed and lead to future success or usefulness") implies that there is yet more that can be done and in the case of cars and car enthusiasts, that more is typically power and speed. In the case of the NSX, you've got a few decades of built-up hype and rather large shoes to fill as well.

So the NSX could potentially put out more power, go faster, be more super-er, but Honda engineers decided not to. Why? You could pose similar questions to the engineers at Mazada or Maserati. What answer do they have, when Ford is making the Focus RS, AMG is making anything with an AMG badge and McLaren is making P1's. Would more power have made the Miata or S2000 any less loved by enthusiasts? I don't think anyone would argue that it would.

For the record, I like Maserati's cars, at least the recent ones. But what I like about them would not be lessened if they were made to be perform as well as the other Italians, and I don't think Maserati would have to give up any of what makes their cars special in the process.

 

I for one would rather buy a car from a manufacturer that at least is talking about making fun cars, vs one that isn't. Mazda and Maserati are two examples of this. Nissan and Honda seem to fall into the numbers camp these days, which doesn't mean the cars aren't fun to drive, but I think you'll know the difference behind the wheel.

 

There has to be a balance of both. A first gen miata is engaging to drive but I wouldn't call it fun, it's just too slow to be fun. I drove a student's 700 hp Shelby Super Snake and it was fast (sorta) in a straight line but wasn't fun to drive on track at all. My supercharged Elise was very engaging and had just barely enough performance (1953 lbs, 250 crank hp) to be fun overall. I think a S2000 has about the right mix of engagement and performance.

 

I cannot comment on Maserati, but I share the sentiment that fun is more important than fast. Last track weekend I had my C7Z and wife's MR2 Spyder (both stock in terms of power output so 560whp vs 105whp) on hand and ran them back to back. The MRS was an absolute BLAST because the course is so tiny and narrow that you can pretty much match the cornering speeds of the better car. Even though it was TORTURE yawning down the straight, I had very nearly as much fun and excitement driving the lesser car. The price and running costs are probably 10-15x higher on the C7Z. This all sways into the vette's favor on a larger course, but bang-for-the-buck should be measured in terms of fun factor, not raw performance, if you are truly a driving enthusiast and are not trying to get involved in something competitive.

Perhaps the S2000 really is the perfect compromise. I can't seem to bring myself to sell mine!