NSX Tales

Our very own editor bought an NSX last week. He'd been looking for a while. When we last spoke, I asked him if he'd picked one up yet. "I'm driving it right now," he says.

After congratulating him on a more fitting mode of transportation than some of the other cars he'd been driving, I began to reflect on my own arm's-length relationship with the NSX over the years. I'm not much of a supercar or exotic enthusiast, but anything with titanium rods and an aluminum chassis designed on a Cray-2 supercomputer deserves its due respect. The NSX has always struck me as a bit of an outsider-a car that few really appreciate and even fewer truly master.

My first NSX experience was in 1989. I was in school studying photography and working part-time as a commercial photo assistant. Photographer Vic Huber got the job of shooting the Acura NSX for a swank, hardback, aluminum-covered "sales brochure." (Acura dealers later sold them for $20 apiece.) Most of the shooting locations were in the San Francisco Bay Area. One was a spectacular country road near Mt. Tamalpais, a few miles northwest of the Golden Gate Bridge. Vic, myself, and another assistant left our hotel well before dawn one morning to meet the car prep company guys and a trailer containing one of the only two NSX prototypes in the country. It was a million-dollar car someone said, and there would not be any more until the production line began rolling the following year. The message was clear: Be Careful. Vic had the challenge of producing a full page of unique action shots in less than an hour before the light turned to crap. Over 25 would eventually be used in the book.

I was honored that Vic put me on "second camera" during some of the pan shots. He then moved to a hard cornering shot after the slower, low-light stuff was out of the way. The turn he set up for was a smooth, cresting off camber leading over a rise to another bend just out of our view. This spot allowed a low-angle view of the car in a spot the driver would be able to push it a bit and induce some visible body roll. That was the idea, anyway. Trouble was, the NSX didn't have much body roll. Vic was looking for some visual drama, and the NSX just wasn't showing any.

Cops had the road closed for us. Radio calls to the stunt driver increased asking him to pick up the pace. Back and forth he drove, each time with increasing speed, each time with little, if any, additional body roll. Each time burning up precious minutes during the short period of ideal light left in the morning. We needed to show some action and suspension movement.

The NSX was just cornering too flat to give it to us. A final exasperated call to the driver emphasized the urgency. He would have to really push it for Vic to get the shot. Push it he did.

On the next pass the million-dollar NSX prototype hit the apex at the absolute limit of grip. It looked bitchin'. Vic's excited, triumphant grin turned quickly to an openmouthed gasp. Tires squealed as the car disappeared from view and entered the next turn. We then heard the car leave the road and the sound of a crash. Oh sh*t. Everyone broke into a run to see if the driver was OK. What we found was a shaken, uninjured driver and the prototype NSX stuffed in the bushes, adorned with clumps of grassy mud in the wheels and fender wells. Amazingly, the car was OK, with only a few scratches to the finish after the mud and grass were cleaned away. The driver, a seasoned pro, shook his head remarking how quickly it had gotten away from him and that he just couldn't save it.