Acura NSX: The Ownership Experience in USA vs UK

I've owned my Acura NSX since January 2019 when I lived in Seattle and about half of my ownership so far has now been in the UK, Southeast England to be more precise. The ownership experience has been very different in the UK compared to the USA, and has provided a significant motivation to our creation of Vroom Classics and our vision that it should be the Classic Car Everything Store. 

I'll break the description of the ownership experience into two parts: first, the experience of driving and enjoying the car and second, the experience of owning and maintaining the car. Let's start with some ground rules, though.

Car Appreciation 101, USA vs. UK

Owning and appreciating a classic car is fundamentally different in the UK compared to the USA. Americans have a vastly different culture when it comes to cars in general and more so when it comes to classic cars. In general, cars in America are an essential commodity and so are cheap and eminently disposable. As such, if an American appreciates a car it's usually only if (in descending order of popularity/commonality):

• It has stupid amounts of (V8) power and can do a quarter mile in 1s flat OR
• It has been customised and modified to within an inch of its life - and is basically unrecognisable as the original car OR
• It has some particular cultural characteristic (e.g. 1950s jet age Americana, Hispanic lo-rider, Corvette - America's sports car, British curiosity etc.) OR
  
• It has some extraordinarily rarified value (e.g. a priceless Bugatti, a one-off Cord etc.)

Classic cars, therefore, are not a thing to the general American. They're just old cars and therefore an embarrassment to the owners. In my experience, Americans don't care for classic (i.e. old) cars. New is always better. This fundamentally colours the classic car ownership experience for the worse compared to the UK.

Experience Part 1: Driving and Enjoying the NSX

Driving and enjoying my NSX is always a very special "pinch me, am I dreaming" experience, regardless of whether I am in the USA or the UK. To me, this car is stupendous, and you can feel the quality of the engineering and construction everywhere whether you're moving or stationary. But the driving experience is for another blog entry, this is about "the rest" of the experience - basically, how  other people react to the car and by consequence yourself as the owner/driver. 

The NSX is a rare car especially in the UK, so most often the reaction in the UK is a positive one. Reactions are generally binary: deep appreciation with signals of approval or curious confusion. I have experienced the rare moment of derision, but only in the UK and never in the USA (Americans are either appreciative or just don't care). And the only derision I have ever experienced, interestingly, has been in the UK despite having driven the car on the Continent (France, Belgium and the Netherlands in particular). But overall, the reaction is overwhelmingly positive, and it's a fantastic conversation starter - even at traffic lights or in traffic! It's fun to share the car in this way, I enjoy it and it gives me a buzz when I meet a friendly stranger and we share some anecdotes and a laugh.

Attending car events in the UK is even more enjoyable, because the car (and, to a much lesser extent, me) gets so much love especially given its original, unmodified condition. Car lovers seem to regard the NSX as a unicorn, a mythical being to be admired and adored - and rightly so! Our younger generation amazingly also hold the NSX is very high esteem, and seem even more excited when they see one in the metal. It's a really nice feeling to share the car with other car lovers, and to share my own reasons for owning it: the engineering, the nuances, the delicacy, the precision, the character - it's a real car nerd's car. And the conversations it starts never fail to stimulate, and I've learned so much about other people's cars - and their lovely personal histories - thanks to the NSX. It literally feeds the soul in the most wonderful way.

When I travelled with Stuart to Le Mans in 2023 for the Le Mans Classic (he took his Vantage, of course), the French were also very positive - if clearly ignorant of what the car was, they're even rarer in France - and the Le Mans crowd were basically obsessed (in a good way). That was a lot of fun and, again, lots of beautiful and interesting conversations were had.

In the USA, the experience couldn't be more different, and not in a good way. Even going to dedicated car meets, (which are very common in the USA), I never connected with any Americans on a car level. They basically aren't interested in the car (or me!) because I've kept it "stock" (i.e. OEM standard) instead of making it stupidly powerful/stupidly customised etc. And being a part of the USA-based NSX owners' community (NSX Prime) has made it obvious that the majority of Americans only buy the NSX so that they can modify and customise it. They treat it like a commodity modern car whose only value is in how it looks - the rest is underwhelming and needs "upgrading" (cue supercharging, "bagged" suspension etc.). They have zero appreciation for the exquisite engineering under the pretty skin. If I had a dollar for every time I've been asked what my customisation plans were, I'd have been able to buy another NSX cash. I couldn't be happier to be in the UK with the NSX, because having it in the USA made me feel like I was the only person on the moon. People either didn't care or openly derided me for not modifying it.

Experience Part 2a: Maintaining the NSX

Now the story flips. It has proven painfully difficult to care for my NSX in the UK, and even within the very close-knit NSX owners' community here I've struggled to find anyone competent enough to help me service and maintain the car. Sourcing parts has so far been straightforward: Honda does a good job with the majority of the car's needs, and there are some amazing specialists on the Continent who can fill the gaps (at a price, needless to say). The two challenges have been finding a qualified mechanic and repairing ageing electronic components.

Why not take it to a Honda dealer, I hear you say. Aren't NSXs just glorified Civics, I hear you say. No, they are not glorified Civics, they are quite unique in the Honda catalogue and Honda only trains a few people to care for the NSX. And if you want to ensure your NSX is at its best, you're best advised to use a properly trained "NSX Tech". Those are few and far between in the UK, reflecting the very limited number of cars that Honda officially allocated to the UK.

When I brought the car to the UK in 2022, I used the great people at NSX UK in Hampshire to localise the car to meet UK regulations (basically, change the all-red rear light cluster, add a rear fog light, change the headlights) and they also serviced the car for a couple of years. Thanks to our Labour government, however, their maintenance operation became unviable and they had to pivot to trading NSXs instead. Thanks, Rach! Since then, I've struggled because most NSX-trained mechanics seem to be located North of Birmingham. I finally found someone based in Surrey, but he's likely to pack it in soon too (Thanks, Rach!).

I have tried to use Honda main dealerships twice, and twice have had utterly horrendous experiences. Utter and crass incompetence overall, they just don't have a clue what an NSX is. It's astounding how useless Honda dealerships are in the UK. By far the worst I've experience is Chiswick Honda in West London: not only are they utterly incompetent, they are deeply dishonest. They kept my car under a false pretext for 2 days until I intervened and revealed their dishonesty. That experience is for another blog post...

Repairing the ageing and dying electronics - especially the stereo head unit and the CD changer - has proven impossible in the 3 years I've been searching. If such a service exists in the UK, it doesn't serve the Alpine hardware used in the NSX. This is the seguie into the American ownership experience...

Owning an NSX in the USA is like owning a brand new car: an infinite supply of parts - OEM and aftermarket - combined with abundant supply of trained and competent service providers (even in the Pacific Northwest, not an NSX hotspot). When I first bought the car, I took it to an Acura dealership North of Seattle where a well-regarded NSX Tech was employed. He gave the car a thorough inspection and a clean bill of health, having replaced the clutch and flywheel and replaced the engine belts as a precaution. The bill, though, was eye-wateringly expensive and I was informed of several alternative independent shops that had been setup by disgruntled NSX Techs who had been poorly treated by Acura/Honda. I used, and benefited from, this network who cared for my car brilliantly and effortlessly. I even managed to replace the OEM steering wheel with a more sporting Momo wheel without having to modify the circuitry supporting the airbag - something only a knowledgeable technician could do. Impossible to do that in the UK.

When my climate control system failed one hot Summer's day, it was easy to get it repaired. I popped the unit out of the dashboard (a 20min job for an ignoramus like me), pop it in the post to Texas, a week later it was back in the car, good as new, all for the hefty sum of $150! The same guy in Texas even modifies the OEM head unit to have Bluetooth! His entire business is NSX, that's how busy he is. Even the Japanese NSX owners send their electronics to him.

Experience Part 2b: Running and Storing the NSX

Now comes the really unpleasant comparison, where the UK again comes out looking terrible: insuring the car, putting it on the road, and storing it when it's not in use.

First, insurance. Car insurance in the UK is a total racket. It is absurdly expensive without good justification. I pay 3x what I paid in the USA to insure the NSX in the UK, AND I am limited in the mileage I can cover annually. In the USA, I insured it along with my daily driver on a standard insurance policy (specialist classic car policies don't really exist for non-Bugatti type cars) and I could use the car as much as I wanted - including crossing state borders. The car was also insured for an agreed value, not some random "market value". In the UK, by contrast, I've had to spend hundreds of hours every year searching for insurance despite having a long history (20 years now) of continuous performance car ownership without a single claim. Apparently, I am a harmless grandma when I drive my Lotus Elise, but a raging teenage maniac when I drive my NSX - or so says my insurer. 

Second, putting the car on the road. In Washington State, I paid about $120 a year in VED/road tax to put the NSX on the road, and that was it. No other taxes or charges. It was super simple and was a function of the car's MEASURED emissions and its weight. In the UK, by contrast, I pay nearly £500 in VED/road tax per year; plus £12.50 in London ULEZ charges every day I dare to use my car (despite the car actually being ULEZ compliant from a measured emissions point of view, Sadiq Khan only cares about the existence of manufacturer documentation rather than actual measurements taken at every MOT - that speaks volumes for Khan's motivations with ULEZ); plus insane fuel levies...the list goes on. It's really expensive to put the NSX on the road and use it, before you've even turned a wheel.

Third, storing the car when it's not in use. Living in London, I cannot keep the NSX on the road outside my house like my daily driver because the council won't sell me more than 1 parking permit (we'll ignore the fact that, in Khan's London, the car is guaranteed to be stolen or vandalised if it was left unaccompanied on a street). So I have to rent a garage for a king's ransom a 15 minute walk from home. Cleaning the car is consequently a pain: I have to either drive it to an appropriate car wash miles from home, or I'm obliged to only wash the car on Sundays (when it's open season on parking on my street).

By contrast, in the USA I parked the NSX in my garage at home and I could access it at will. Nothing simpler, and obviously free of charge.

Owning and running a car in the USA is simple, cheap and friction-free. It's the exact opposite in the UK, for no good reason. It's a tragedy for our hobby and passion.