THE CAR THAT NEVER WAS

They say that music drives the world. But in this age of digitization even music has not escaped. While listening to a walkman is blasphemous, even diskman has become passé. Now is the age of downloaded music (more illegal than legal) and of tiny swanky mp3 players. So I too decided to grace myself with one. But as I looked for advice from my friends, as to which one to buy among the many to choose from, almost all had only one name to suggest, iPOD. This, when there were many other players that were much cheaper, offered additional facilities like FM and voice recording, and were much more user friendly. But none of my friends would even, so much as listen to these “excuses”.

This just reminded me of the Honda NSX (chances are you’ve not even heard the name). There are several reasons that the Honda NSX was a great car. It was fast, had lots of F1tech in it, was loaded to the brim with additional features and maybe the coup de grace was that it was tuned by the late F1 maestro Ayrton Senna; the list actually is pretty long. But still no one bought it and the car held the dubious record of being one of the biggest (and indeed rare) failures of the marquee. This was basically due to three reasons (ironically, the very three reasons which the company expected would be the biggest scoring points of the car):

1. It was pretty cheap (by supercar standards). Now no one wanted to associate himself with a supercar that your milkman came in (well slightly over the top, but then u get the point, right).

2. It was pretty easy to ride and did not demand all of one’s skill to keep him/her alive at the end of the day. How boring!!! Supercars are supposed to scare u, take the breath out of your lungs, send u into orbit, etc. In a tad oversimplified statement, they r supposed to thrill u beyond measure, and exist just on the fine line of being dangerous (we all love 007 type stunts, don’t we).

3. It was a Honda (coz in this category band image is everything). And before all u fans of the big ‘H’ start shouting “bloody murder” let me elaborate on my previous statement. I mean that Hondas are meant to take kids to school (and other such routine chores), which they ARE brilliant at. But they’re certainly not known to be great for straight lining corners, or power sliding out of them (track day tools that is). You take them to the mall, not “The Ring”.

Well, some may still challenge the third reason, citing the Nissan GTR and Chevrolet Corvette, as examples to prove it wrong. While I agree to the GTR being a cult car, it still is not counted in the hallowed realms of the Ferraris and Lambos. And in any case one can always count it as an exception rather than the norm. Oh, and as for the Corvette, less said the better. Tell me does ANYONE outside the US of A buy it? The answer as we all very well know is that none do; and as to the taste of the Yankees in cars, it can only be described (conservatively) as being, well………….strange. If you observe closely, many big manufacturers like Toyota and Ford have not even bothered to try (please please don’t name the GT40 and embarrass one and all). Actually the supercar (the real true blue supercar) still pretty much remains an exclusive European domain.

And this I put entirely on the culture and how automobiles have developed in the continents over a period of time. It’s same that the Europeans can never make a good muscle car unlike the Americans, and none can master the art of simplicity and space utilization like the Japs. So guys leave the experts to do their own jobs. Any effort to try and beat the other at his own game is more often than not going to end in tears, damaged egos and a gaping hole in the annual balance sheet. And when someone does venture into such a specialized field, the manufacturers sometimes get ambivalent, causing such disasters to happen. Also I think with several things you have to just ignore plain logic and listen to just the allure of the thing. A classic case then, of listening to your heart, rather than your head. So, I guess I too stuck with the times, ignored logic, listened to my heart (or maybe to the constant pestering of my friends) and the voice was clear, go get urself an iPOD.