How an NSX changed the way I evaluate cars.

Today I was given the chance to drive an Acura NSX. I almost peed myself. Allow me to explain why.

When I was 11 years old I noticed that a weird off shoot of Honda popped up calling itself Acura. I was a car geek even then, reading every Car & Driver cover to cover when it showed up in the mail each month before I got from the mailbox to the house. I was eager to drive in the same way that sharks were eager to devour the entire cast of Deep Blue Sea.

Acura was a collection of front wheel drive boredom until 1990, when they offered a Ferrari competitor. Imagine Lifetime channel airing Ultimate Fighting Championship and you'll understand the departure that the NSX represented from the rest of the lineup. The critics couldn't stop singing praises for the weirdly excellent mid-engined barnstormer. I couldn't read enough about the home run that Honda had just hit over the fences of all the exotics from Lamborghini to Porsche and even the most hallowed Ferrari. Meeting one in person gives me the same tingle sensation that I assume my buddy Justin Barksdale experiences when meeting Mariners athletes.

So, here I was yesterday with the keys in hand and a destination in store. I was to drive a childhood hero, and I was getting paid. I felt a little guilty.

The guilt lifted, though, when I tried to climb in. I don't fit into Acura NSXs. I can put my wide butt into the seat. I can put my trunk-like feet on the pedals, but in the end I'm 10 gallons of crap trying to stuff myself into a svelte 5 gallon container. The NSX was an extra small tank top, I was the portly gal wearing it while waddling through the aisles of Walmart with no apparent sense of shame.

I wept bitterly, then drove the damned thing anyway with my head tilted to the side and my elbow jutted way out the open window. Yes, it is finger-tippy (the steering wheel reacts beautifully to input), the pedals are refined and precise, the shifter a proud evidence of intelligent life on planet Earth, and that motor? Oh, that motor. Honda, I thank you.

Now make the new NSX big enough for grown humans.