Wind of Change.(Column)(NSX-a revolution)

Byline: Richard S. Chang

When the Scorpions asked us to follow the Moskva down to Gorky Park from the rubble of the Berlin Wall, it was a strange juxtaposition-the quintessential '80s sap-metal band heralding the dawn of a grudge-filled and yes, Communist-free future.

You could feel it. 1990 was the dawn of another era.

Around that time I was entering college at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, home of the Cray-2 supercomputer. We received an e-mail address and even had access to a precursor of Netscape called Mosaic. We layered our collared shirts, and Dennis Miller wore jeans on late-night TV. Yes, change was in the air. And amidst all of this, Acura released the NSX.

From Japan? A Honda? Really?

You cannot underestimate the overall cultural impact of the NSX. Suddenly there was an exotic car for sensible liberal arts majors like me. It was sexy, but not Magnum P.I. sexy. It was independent-film sexy. And it was so out-of-the-box that to picture the same scenario today, you would have to go beyond imagining a Korean company building a $100,000 supercar. The mold has been broken. You would have to imagine a brand like Nike releasing a hybrid sports car that not only looks good and performs, but also revolutionizes the way a car is made.

Honda engineers drew inspiration from the F-16 fighter jet and developed their own concept of a supercar, favoring all-around fitness over a straight-up power hitter. They did it with an aluminum block and introduced the world to VTEC. Honda backed it with Ayrton Senna's name and identified a new segment, the supercar that could brake and turn better than it could accelerate. And for me, the NSX entered the world as I was stepping into a new one: life on my own.