It was early afternoon on a weekday when I was told with a smile, “Feel free to go anywhere you like.”
Driving a manual transmission for the first time in 8 years, I was a bit rusty. On top of that, the freshly overhauled transmission had that stiff, new feeling. Embarrassingly jerky, I headed toward the Shuto Expressway on-ramp.
Heading south on C2. If you live in the Tokyo metropolitan area, you might recognize this—it’s a route that runs through tunnels. I eagerly merged onto the main road from the toll gate. Shifting up early through 2nd, 3rd… and then… I floored it.
PAAAAAAAN! The B18C screamed.
The high-pitched, passionate exhaust note from the Spoon N1 muffler flooded into the cabin, more than loud enough even with the windows closed.
Pushing it in 3rd gear VTEC, the speed just slightly exceeds 100 km/h. In my Audi, that’s a speed you could nearly reach in 1st gear, but the journey to get there feels like an entirely different world.
Hit a bump in the road and the sound wavers with a “QUOOOOON.” Watching the tachometer spin past 8,000 RPM, I shift up. The perfectly matched close-ratio gears deliver the same connected response in the next gear—as if the accelerator pedal is directly attached to the tires—along with that sublime engine sound waiting for me.
After exiting the tunnel, I also savored the corner sections of C1. The nose turns exactly as you steer, and when you press the accelerator while feeling the G-forces, the VTEC sound that fills your ears is pure bliss—there’s simply no other word for it but “happiness.”
My impression after the test drive: when it comes to “the joy of driving,” this car is, to put it modestly, “the ultimate machine.”
