If You Could Choose Only One: Ferrari 430 or Acura NSX?
I try to find what I think are interesting backgrounds to use when taking photos of cars that I review. Last summer, because of the Independence Day weekend, I was able to keep a Scion FR-S for a couple extra days and, procrastinator that I am, I put off taking some pics until the last moment. Baker’s of Milford, a restaurant and banquet hall located not surprisingly in Milford, Michigan, home of the famed General Motors Proving Grounds, hosts one of the oldest and biggest weekly cruise-in car shows in the country every Sunday afternoon. There are some great two lane roads in that part of Oakland County, including those that circle the Proving Grounds, roads exactly of the sort for which the Toyobaru sports car was designed, so I headed out to Bakers. It was late, they were giving out the raffle prizes, but there were still lots of cars, enough to make a nice backdrop for the photos.
Since a lot of car enthusiasts like to drive something enthusiastic to car shows they attend, when I attend a show I always try to check out the parking lot. There’s almost always something cool or unique, a car or truck worth seeing and this show was no different. I didn’t have to look for very long, because as I pulled into the parking lot I noticed three fairly interesting cars parked together, a Honda S2000 was parked right behind a red and black Acura NSX, which itself was parked next to an even redder Ferrari 430. My immediate car guy question was: so if I had the choice between the two mid-engine supercars for an extended drive, but I could only choose one, which would I choose?
I’ve never driven a Ferrari, which is undoubtedly on the list for every car guy and gal. I’m a car guy. It’s a Ferrari. Capice? On the other hand, I’ve never driven the all aluminum mid-engine Acura and I know how significant the NSX is and what a great car it is, perhaps an even more significant car than the 430. The NSX was something new from a completely unexpected source. The Ferrari may be a Ferrari, but it’s just another Ferrari. When it was new, the buff books sang the 430’s praises, as it was said to be a significant improvement over the 360, but that’s sort of how things go with Ferraris. The 360 was considered in its day a significant improvement over the 348/355. Now that the 458 variant of the 430 has been released, the previous model doesn’t get as much attention. The original NSX, though, is the stuff of automotive legend.
That might not be completely fair comparison since the 430 is at least a generation newer than the original NSX. As it is, many Ferrari 360 owners hold the belief that the folks in Maranello benchmarked that car against the NSX because the Ferrari folks in Maranello knew that Honda’s supercar was in fact superior to the 348 and 355.
In any case, it’s still an interesting thought experiment. If you could only choose one, which would it be? It is a good question, but since everyone seems to still come up with the same answer (what car guy, after all, is going to turn down driving a Ferrari supercar of any vintage?), in addition to the straight up choice between the Ferrari 430 and the Acura NSX, I’ll offer up another couple of questions to the Best & Brightest. Since we all want to drive a Ferrari, how about if you could drive both of them, which would you drive first? That way you can check the Ferrari off of your bucket list and still get to experience what is supposed to be one of the best driving cars ever, the original NSX.
Finally, though we all want to drive a Ferrari, we also know that exotics are not typically suitable for daily use. My last question is if you had to own one for a year, without having to consider purchase price, depreciation or possible profits, but you would have to be financially responsible for any repairs, maintenance and wear and tear, which one would you pick?
Since there are many fans of the NSX among our readers (not to mention that it’s the favorite car of our Managing Editor), I’ve also included some shots of a couple of other NSXs that were at Bakers that Sunday. A red one was in the show, and a late model gold NSX was parked not far from where the Ferrari, Honda S2000 and NSX were. Yes, the early ones with the hidden headlights look much better than the later versions of the original NSX and I’m probably not the only person who thinks they also look better than the production 2016 NSX, just revealed at the Detroit auto show.
Note: This post was revised since originally published.
Ronnie Schreiber edits Cars In Depth, a realistic perspective on cars & car culture and the original 3D car site. If you found this post worthwhile, you can get a parallax view at Cars In Depth. If the 3D thing freaks you out, don’t worry, all the photo and video players in use at the site have mono options. Thanks for reading – RJS
Ronnie Schreiber edits Cars In Depth, the original 3D car site.
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there are Ferrari's I'd prefer, but this isn't one of them. NSX today, NSX all year. I'd hit the same 3 turn set every day, and each time I did it better than ever before feel like Sennna. The NSX is the ultimate expression of a particular automotive ethos. The 458 is too. This Ferrari is first at nothing.
NSX without a second thought, now if it was an F40 or 288 GTO I might have some trouble deciding.