Quote:
Originally Posted by Re_Invention
Some more fuel for the fire
http://blog.caranddriver.com/more-de...s2000-revival/
TLDR -
Two stage electric boosting system; electronically driven supercharger, conventional turbocharger. Longitudinally mounted 2 liter inline 4 making 320+ horsepower with an 8 speed DCT transaxle with a sticker north of $50,000.
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Haha yeah exactly. That's what I was hoping Honda would avoid -- another heavy, overly expensive/complex, dual-clutch only, numb $50k+ sports car. It's the same direction they went with the new NSX, and the same direction the industry seems to be headed.
Oh well, like you said at least my next SUV/minivan will be 500 hp so I can beat that Volvo soccer mom to the next red light while letting forward crash detection save my ass so I can text on my phablet about how annoying the start-stop system is.
Quote:
Originally Posted by serialk11r
Maybe if Honda tries to make a "budget Porsche", slotting it in where the S2000 was (not exactly a cheap sports car, but less money than a Corvette or Porsche), giving it a relatively premium feel and higher grade components, that would be a good seller. A 35k car would have more of that luxury cachet and performance, while still being in range of the people who buy twins, Miatas, WRXs, etc. Give it a slightly spiced up run of the mill 4 cylinder engine to save money, but give it some faux leather, nice looking buttons, bits of aluminum here and there for weight savings, etc. I can tolerate if they make it a soft top to help sales, I'll just throw the latches away and bolt a hard top on. I personally would have wanted a nicer interior for the twins, and a lot of enthusiasts I met felt like the car was too slow, so if you improve those two areas the demand might be better.
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I kind of feel like that's the market Nissan chased with the 370z. $35k RWD car with more power and better interior than the S2000. It didn't work out all that great though. I think once you're willing to sacrifice weight to move up-market and add performance, suddenly you're uncomfortably close to competing with the Mustang GT and Camaro SS. The advantages those cars have with the volumes they move and the amount of parts/platform-sharing they do, it'd be hard for any Japanese car manufacturer to compete.