Comments by "" (@neutronalchemist3241) on "Doug DeMuro" channel.

for Doug EVERYTHING that on a car si different from a Honda Civic, is unbelievably weird.
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In the Espada clip he had been amazed by a full size spare tire with an actual wheel (like one wasn't included in absolutely any italian car) and explained how it was there because that was the "four seater, touring Lamborghini" (obviously the Miura, under the front hood, had a full size spare tire as well).
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I owned a Lamborghini boiler.
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It's not like it isn't great only because Doug doesn't like the current models. Actually the Maserati brand is way healtier now than when it built this Ghibli.
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+lokisgodhi Had been for Citroen Maserati would have been closed long ago (they simply put the brand on liquidation when Citroen went bankrupt). Even the De Tomaso era was preferable.
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When it was introduced, in 1977, it was quite up to date for a small hatchback, but when imports begun in USA in 1985, it was already obsolete.
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That's actually a washer bottle heater. It was not that common on italian cars, but pretty common on cars manufactured for colder climates.
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This is a drag racer AND a far more comfortable car to daily drive than any supercar. Obviously it's not a track racer. There, lighter cars with better weight distribution will run circles around it. But are those that are really limited to that.
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Not to say he not doing the slightiest researches (IE bumper plate lights were on a ton of Euro cars back in the seventies) or even thinking (batteries are usually placed on the engine bay, and those compartments, especially in the old days, were usually not isulated and were quite open to the elements).
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3 years is a very conservative figure. Many 348 belts lasted 9 years and were still in good shape. It depends on the use. A regular use helps the belts to last more, but Ferrari knows that many owners of those cars use them one or two times a year. They want to avoid the belt failing exactly in one of those few times.
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In what alternate dimension the race history of Porsche is better than that of Ferrari?
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Unfortunately, contrary to the Miata, the NSX was, at best, a technological demonstrator. It's retail price had nothing to do to what the car costed to Honda to design and manufacture (it probably costed less to Ferrari to manufacture a complete Testarossa). It never came close to be a profitable car.
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He started as a boiler manufacturer actually. I too owned a Lamborghini boiler.
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7:41 You know that usually batteries are placed into the engine compartment, and that the engine compartments, especially in the old days, were usually not isulated and were quite open at the bottom, do you? Licence plate lights on bumpers were not an afterthought. They were actually extremely common on Italian cars back in the '70s. The Alfa Romeo Alfetta, FIAT 124, Lancia Beta Coupè and HPE and many others, all had their plate lights on the rear bumper. It was not only an Italian thing. The Opel Kadett and Manta had as well, like a tons of other cars. Another interesting feature are the tail lights, that came straight out of a 1972 Alfa Romeo Alfetta. The Countach is not the first nor the last supercar that reused existing tail lights (The McLaren F1 still does). The curious thing is that Alfa Romeo ceased to use that tail lights with the restyling of the Alfetta already in 1979.
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Or it would, had someone actually bought it. Because reality is that, despite every NSX likely costed to Honda more than Ferrari paid for every complete Testarossa, and much more than the actual retail price (you can surely made nice things if you can completely ignore the design and production costs) none cared about the NSX while it was on the market, and the car flopped HARD.
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Just if you dont' take into account that every NSX likely costed to Honda more than Ferrari paid for every complete Testarossa, and much more than the actual retail price (that didn't prevent the car to flop HARD on the market). The NSX was, at best, a technological demonstrator. It never came close to be a profitable car. You can surely made nice things if you can completely ignore the design and production costs.
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Really, none gave a damn about the NSX when it was in production. As already said the model tanked hard while Porsche sold every year more 911 than NSX had been produced through it's entire lifespan. Between the 348 and the 355 there had been actually no drastic change (they had the same frame, and the engine had been only slightly evolved). There had been a continuous evolution between the 348-355-360 because the real competitors (Porsche and Lamborghini) were evolving as well while the NSX were demonstrating their superiority taking dust on the dealers' floors (there had been a more drastic change between the 360 and the 430, when the NSX was out of production already, than between the 348 and the 355). The 348 is actually a very simple car whose cost of mainteinance are no higher than those of the cars that followed it. The only real annoying part, and the only service you can't DIY in a garage, is the belt change, but the belt itself cost only few bucks, and the work doesn't need to be done in a Ferrari dealer.
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Supercars reusing existing front lights, rear lights, turn signals and rear view mirrors is so common is hardly worth mentioning.
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3 years is a very conservative figure. Many 348 belts lasted 9 years and were still in good shape. It depends on the use. A regular use helps the belts to last more, but Ferrari knows that many owners of those cars use them one or two times a year. They want to avoid the belt failing exactly in one of those few times.
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You can tune a Ferrari 348 to produce more than 500bhp for that matter.
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Had it had 321 hp, on a lighter car, it would have beaten the 300hp F348 in acceleration, instead was slower.
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It's actually much more comfortable than any supercar as a daily driver. Obviously many of them will be faster on a track, but are them that are limited to just that field.
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"Not just your typical crappy Italian spare tyre" Why the gratuitous slap? Have you ever seen an Italian car of the '70s or '80s, even an economy small car like a FIAT 126, not having a full size spare tire with an actual wheel? Can you name one (bar 512BB and Countach, that are not really your usual car, and had a full diameter spare tire anyway)? I'm very curious to know the Italian car models that forced the owner to wait for those "weird italian car services". BTW I have to inform you that the Miura, thus not being "the four seater, the touring Lamborghini" under the hood had a full size spare tire with an actual wheel as well, like any Italian built car of the time.
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Actually Maserati has its own plants, engines and platforms.
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Supercars reusing rear tail light is so common is hardly worth mentioning. The McLaren F1 still does. IE, for all of it's history (so, well into the '90s) the Countach used the 1972 Alfetta tail lights (that Alfa Romeo ditched with the 1979 restyling).
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A guy whose car company loss $710m every three monts is a reliable source?
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I find that actually the 348 design aged better. The 348 is a true '80s styled car (even if it was sold mostly in the '90s), from the first to the last panel and line. The F355 is a mix, with too many bulbous parts. BTW, why is so difficult to understand that the Ferrari "300" series had NEVER been intended to be supercars? They are sporty two-seaters fun to drive.
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If Doug doesn't understand it, then it's Italian.
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The 348 is actually a very simple car. The only complicate thing about it is the belt change. For the rest, you can do the servicing yourself, almost all the parts are common spares. The ECU is a standard Bosch Motronic 2.5.
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It's not a supercar. It actually had a compact spare tyre, like a Ferrari 348, F355 and F360. Or the 512BB and Countach (that were supercars) for that matter. The Ferrari 308 and 328 still had full size spare tyres (like the Lamborghini Miura had)
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Supercars using existing front and rear lights, turn lights and rear view mirrors is very common. Tail light are so reused it's not even worth mentioning, about front headlight, The SSC Ultimate Aero used the Ford Focus headlight, the MG SV the FIAT Punto ones, The Aston Martin Virage the AUDI 100 ones...
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2:54 the keyhole was in plain view on the Ferrari 348, F355 and F360, so for all the NSX lifetime. You bashed the F355 keyhole because it was in plain view. Actually the 348 door handles are more ergonomic, the keyhole is part of the door handle, not placed so ridiculously far, and the handles are more robust too.
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And that's why it didn't sell. The car had "never fully redesigned for almost fifteen years" because, on the market, the NSX flopped HARD. After having invested a HUGE amount of resources and time to design and build the NSX (the original retail price didn't really reflect the true costs. It's only the price they tought they could sell some car without seeming desperate), the model had been on the market for 15 years to offset part of the investment. But there wasn't any interest spending more to evolve the design. Because the NSX was a better daily driver among cars that were not meant to be daily driven, and infact, in general, the NSX sucked at being a daily driver anyway. If you wanted a sporty daily driver, the Nissan 300ZX beaten the NSX hard, and infact it sold a ton more cars.
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A "huge success"? Between 1991 and 1998 less than 14.000 NSX had been manufactured in total, and only an handful had been made after that date. ALMOST HALF OF THE TOTAL PRODUCTION HAD BEEN MADE IN 1991 ALONE.That means that the total retail price of all the NSX sold (not even counting that actually HONDA collected only a small part of that price, that included transport, taxes, dealer's percentage, etc...) didn't even came close to repay it's design costs. Not to say the actual building costs (almost half of the total production made in the first year means that the DEDICATED plant that built the NSX had been hugely overbuilt in respect to the actual production numbers reached every year after the first one. It's easy to say that probably Honda payed every NSX more than its retail price in building costs alone). The NSX had been, at best, a technological demonstrator, not a car that could be profitable in any way and, sales-wise it had been a flop, as demonstrated by the demand tanking just after a year of production. The MR2 spyder had been a variant of a car that sold in the hundred of thousands and had been evolved through three generations. The S2000 was an attempt to intercept part of the market of the Miata. Thus selling more than 100.000 samples, it ultimately failed at that, and so, after the mid-age facelift, the plans for a second generation had been scrapped. If one, the NSX demonstrated that make profits selling mid engined sportscars is a VERY difficult task. Kudos to Ferrari, Porsche and Lotus for succeeding in it.
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The Porsche 964 (1989-1994) had been produced in 62.172 samples. The 993 (1994-1998) had been produced in 68.029 samples. The 996 (1997-2004) had been produced in 175.262 samples. Porsche sold more 911 every year between 1989 and 2005 than Honda sold NSX for it's entire 14 year production span (and, as you said, they were priced about the same). Porsche, Ferrari, Lotus, Lamborghini... make a living producing and selling that kind of car. Those are their workhorses. For Honda, as already said, it had been at best a technologial demonstrator that never came close to be a profitable car. Obviously you can do nice things if you can completely ignore design and production costs, but not even Honda can lightheartedly loose billions on a project. They really believed to sell more than a handful of those cars a year (and infact they massively overbuilt the assembly plant) and, when the car had been a flop, they accurately avoided to spend more money on it. Yeah, they are talking about that, like for many cars that had been ignored while they were available on the dealers' floors. The S2000 had been in no way a sale success. A car with a retail price of about $35.000 that don't share a common platform with other models needs to be sold in at least 25.000 30.000 samples a year to came close to offset its production costs. the S2000 managed to sell half of what was needed only for two or three years. Japanese evolve their cars when they are a success, being they sporty models or not, like any other. The NSX simply had been a flop (like the S2000 had been for that matter), that taught Honda that, to be " the top of the food chain" (or, more precisely, to build a car that was marginally better than the competition in some respect, and worse in others) it had to spend way more than it could hope to recover, or could afford.
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"never fully redesigned for almost fifteen years". It's because, on the market, the NSX flopped HARD. After having invested a HUGE amount of resources and time to design and build the NSX (the original retail price didn't really reflect the true costs. It's only the price they tought they could sell some car without seeming desperate), the model had been on the market for 15 years to offset part of the investment. But there wasn't any interest spending more to evolve the design.
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