You’ve seen the pictures by now. New “spy shots” of the upcoming GT-R parked at the Nurburgring. (Personally, I think we should stop calling them spy shots and call them what they are—Nurburgring shots, like how we use the term Red Carpet photographs for pictures of actors prancing into the Oscars.)

The world couldn’t be more ready for the GT-R. In May, Top Gear magazine put the prototype on its cover, along with a clock counting down the 550 some odd days to its release at the end of next year. Motor Trend picked up the same photos and story, which didn’t say anything new, despite an interview with Shiro Nakamura, who has long mastered the ancient PR art of using a lot of words to say very little.

We’re in GT-R overdrive right now, and it’s only going to get more intense. More spy shots. More interviews with Nakamura. More nothing.

There’s a reason for this, of course. And it’s not just marketing. The GT-R is Nissan’s go-to guy. It’s clutch. It always comes through. Ghosn has never underestimated this. Even if the car doesn’t make financial sense from a production point of view, it makes up for it by providing him with an instant diversion. It’s like an automotive version of a celebrity sex tape. Fire half of the Japanese employees? No problem, just introduce the GT-R. Slumping sales? Leak engine info about the GT-R. Broken talks with General Motors? Send a near-production GT-R out on the Nurburgring. See, works every time.

On the flip side, we’ve seen and heard very little of the other highly anticipated supercar sequel expected to drop at the 2007 Tokyo Motor Show—the Honda NSX.

Right now, finding out anything about the NSX is like deciphering the Da Vinci Code. We’re left to wrestle with clues and hang on CEO Takeo Fukui’s every word. Rumors have run all over the place. It’s a V-10. No, it’s a V-8. I even read in a British magazine that it’s going to be a mid-engine V-6 hybrid. Two years ago, Honda released the HSC concept car—saying that it hints at the next NSX—then backtracked completely.

Really, it’s all up in the air. What’s it going to look like? What’s it going to be? I don’t think Honda can answer those questions right now. Recent rumors have the release date pushed back to 2009. Why the cold feet? Here are three possible reasons:

1. Ferrari brought sexy back.
Not only that. Lamborghini is back to building poster cars. If you wanted to buy a Ferrari in 1991, when Honda introduced the NSX, you had these three choices: the Testarossa, the Mondial and the 348. The Lamborghini Diablo was still an advanced version of the Countach. And the Porsche 911 was stuck in the ‘80s. You also didn’t have Koenigseggs, Bugattis, Nobles and Pagani Zondas.

The NSX caught the European companies napping. Actually, it caught them hung over after a decade of cocaine and rampant carefree unprotected sex. Ferrari, Lamborghini and Porsche were satisfied with nursing their comfort zones, while the NSX revolutionized performance and the concept of performance. It introduced handling and braking into the sports car equation, which everyone else has since caught on to.

2. Porsche Cayman S
It’s pretty much the Porsche version of the NSX—a mid-engine two-seater with a 300-hp six-cylinder engine and an emphasis on handling and precision. It’s got great power-to-weight and all finesse—exactly what Honda designed the NSX to be. But around $30,000 cheaper. (Speaking of $30,000…)

3. You can buy a supercar for $30,000.
Not really big news here. But one look at the “Top Gear” Power Lap board really drives the point home. The Subaru WRX STi is a mere 0.4-seconds slower than the Murcielago, and the Mitubishi Evo VIII is 0.1-seconds faster. The R32 Golf isn’t far behind, followed by the Mazda RX-8 and Nissan 350Z. All can be had for around 30 grand.

Bottom line is the NSX’s future has been undermined by its own success. It came out in 1991, found a wide-open gap and plugged it. Today, all the gaps are full. We’re in an age where the VW group has two super exotics and everyone is testing on the Nurburgring. No matter what Honda comes out with to replace the NSX, it will make less of a splash than the original, just on the basis of the new supercar landscape.

And the GT-R?

Much less pressure here. It was never built to be the ultimate sports car. It was built to be bad-ass. It’s going to be heavy. It’s going to be a brute. And in many ways, it has to be. While Honda has performed well with or without the NSX in its product lineup, the GT-R does more of Nissan’s heavy lifting.

Fumes appears the first and third Tuesday of every month. Richard Chang can be reached at rich{at}urbanracer.com.