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The original Acura NSX: Development history and driving the icon

The original NSX, introduced in production form in 1990 by Honda and to the United States market under the Acura brand in 1991, is now officially 25 plus years old. Generations of car enthusiasts grew to love the original NSX over the 15 years it was in production and beyond, but as an fan and owner, I think it's important to fully realize just how monumental a shift the introduction of the NSX was in the art of making cars. So, retold 25 years later, this is the abridged story of the NSX, Honda's supercar. The Idea The NSX was an extremely risky project for Honda, a company that in the late 1980's was nowhere near the corporate juggernaut that it is today. Honda's eponymous founder, Soichiro Honda, was still involved in decision-making at the company during this time under the role of "Supreme Advisor," and it is debatable whether the NSX project in its infancy would have gone forward at all had he not still been pushing the company towards the spirit of technical achievement it had been known for in the prior decades. Mr. Honda was still so involved during this period, in fact, that when the first batch of 300 production NSXs were made with a version of the Acura badge he didn't like, he ordered all of the cars stopped at port in the USA, the new badges applied, and the offending incorrect badges sent back to Japan to be systematically destroyed. This was clearly a man who paid attention to the details, but I digress. Honda as a company devoted $140 million dollars to the NSX project ($250 million in today's money), half of which would go to developing the car, and the remainder of which would go to building a new state-of-the-art factory to assemble it. Honda's own goals for the NSX were actually exactly as most media stories portray the car today: to build a bona-fide exotic supercar, but one without the ergonomic and reliability penalties associated with that type of car. They didn't want to sacrifice the needs of the driver to the supposed demands of performance, demands that they felt didn't have to be there in making a truly top-level performance machine. The R&D team wanted a car that could hang with heavyweight exotics in a straight line, play with smaller and more lightweight sports cars in the curves, and cruise in serenity on the freeway. Essentially, they wanted it all, and the brief was to have a car that could do everything without compromise.

Honda slaps Legend name on JDM Acura RLX

It's been eighteen years since we last saw the Legend nameplate in Acura showrooms here in the US, but in Japan it's still very much alive as Honda's flagship sedan. And now the Japanese automaker has revealed the latest generation.
Set to go on sale across Japan on January 22 - 30 years since the nameplate was introduced - the new Honda Legend is essentially the same model we already know in the States as the new Acura RLX. Only by "essentially," we mean exactly. It is the RLX, only with Honda badges instead of Acura ones. The manufacturer hasn't even changed the grille or the wheels.
Although the RLX is being offered Stateside in two forms, the new JDM Honda Legend will only come in one form, equivalent to our Sport Hybrid, with Super Handling All-Wheel Drive and a hybrid powertrain pairing a 3.5-liter V6 to a seven-speed dual clutch transmission with integrated electric motor. For the privilege of owning the most luxurious car Honda makes, Japanese customers will have to pony up ¥6,800,000 - which about adds up to $59,950 we'd pay for an RLX Sport Hybrid.

IIHS says these are the safest cars of 2013

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) has revealed its annual list of Top Safety Picks, an award that highlights automobiles it says offer "superior crash protection." A new and still more significant award, the Top Safety Pick+ honor, is given to those vehicles that earn good ratings for occupant protection in four out of five areas of measure. And while some 117 vehicles were given the TSP seal of approval for 2013, just 13 passed muster for TSP+.
To be fair, IIHS only evaluated 29 vehicles with its new testing procedures for TSP+ (we'd expect that the number of qualified cars will rise substantially for 2014). Luxury and Near Luxury midsize cars were the first groups evaluated, followed by midsizers in the Moderately Priced Cars category - unsurprisingly, it's only midsize cars that you'll find among the class this year.
Only two luxury sedans made the list of 13 for 2013: the Acura TL and Volvo S60. The other 11 cars on the list included entries from domestic, Japanese and German car makers: Dodge Avenger, Chrysler 200, Ford Fusion, Honda Accord (sedan and coupe), Kia Optima (but not its close kin, the Hyundai Sonata, strangely), Nissan Altima, Subaru Legacy and Outback, Suzuki Kizashi and the Volkswagen Passat all made the grade.