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McLaren-Honda goes 8-bit in Turbo Heroes

Formula One is all about speeding forward, but it's not without its spats of nostalgia – from retro liveries to a return to turbo power. Take, for example, this latest animated short from the McLaren-Honda team. It's called Turbo Heroes, and it sends us back to the days of our childhood in the 1980s and 90s in glorious 8-bit form. Part Street Fighter and part Aryton Senna's Super Monaco Grand Prix, Turbo Heroes is a game-style video short – the start to a series from the looks of things. It portrays an epic battle in which basic animated versions of Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso (coached by a grumpy Ron Dennis, no less) chase the evil Exhaustus in a race to recover the fabled (and equally fictitious) Jade Dragon of Suzuka to its rightful home in Japan. It's brought to you by the same team responsible for the Tooned series that was targeted at today's kids, only this one takes a decidedly different aesthetic approach. If you grew up around the same time as many of us here at Autoblog did, and got a kick out of films like Kung Fury and Scott Pilgrim vs The World, you'll probably enjoy this one. So put on your snapback, grab a can of Jolt Cola, and crank the ghetto blaster you've got hooked up to that Nintendo Entertainment System for a high-speed race down memory lane. You don't even have to blow in the cartridge.

Honda to spool up turbos, workforce with F1 tech

Honda has had a longer and more tumultuous relationship with Formula One than just about any other automaker. It had only been building cars for four years before it entered F1 in 1964 as the first Japanese team in the series, winning its first race the following season but shuttering the program a few years later. Honda came back to power the likes of Williams and McLaren to several World Championships in the '80s and '90s, but things took a downturn when it started a partnership and ultimately took over British American Racing. After pouring untold billions into the effort, the economy tanked, and Honda ultimately sold the team, which subsequently claimed the championship - under new ownership and Mercedes power. Now Honda is gearing up to return in 2015 with a new turbocharged V6 hybrid powertrain it's supplying initially to McLaren, which in turn is switching back to Honda from nearly two decades with Mercedes.
So why return to F1 now? That's precisely what Autoblog asked Honda's Global President and Chief Executive Takanobu Ito (pictured above with McLaren chief Martin Whitmarsh) while visiting his office in Tokyo. While he wouldn't reveal specifics (like when his company's new engine would be available to other teams, as it most certainly will in the long run), Ito-san was clearly happy to discuss the motivation behind the move and the value he feels it brings to the company and its products.
Ito pointed toward the proliferation of motors within Honda's powertrains as a development he hopes to take to road from track

Is the original Acura NSX a perfect supercar?

The long-awaited arrival of the second coming of the Acura NSX has naturally brought with it many deep retrospectives on the first Acura NSX. Xcar is the latest with a stint in the time capsule, lining up three NSXs to sample at a track in the UK. There's the red wonder that started it all, the standard aluminum-bodied car that went on sale in 1990, so simple and easy-to-drive, extracting more joy than many thought possible from a 3.0-liter V6 with 'just' 270 horsepower and 210 pound-feet of torque. The 25-year-old exotic shows its years, but mostly because of an automatic transmission that dampens throttle response and doesn't like changing gears. The praises it earned in the day, however, still remain, namely excellent steering, handling, and feedback. After that comes laps in the first NSX Type R, the model that lost more than 250 pounds by having no air conditioning, sound deadening, or stereo, and lightweight tweaks like carbon seats and thinner glass. Although it the tuning makes it much harder, the presenter wants to know, "Why isn't Honda making a car like this today?" Then there's the 2002 model, the one that would only last three years before closing the door on a fifteen-year run. It got better at the same time as it got softer, but by then the NSX had nothing left to prove; it hit every one of its targets, it realigned the segment in ways we're still benefiting from, and for at least half of its run nothing else could touch it. Based on the reviews so far, that might include the brand new, very good and very complicated NSX. Check out the video above for Xcar's take. Related Video: News Source: Xcar via YouTube Acura Honda Coupe Luxury Performance Videos xcar honda nsx