CarBrandLogos archive · Acura · 1990

AcuraNSX

Proof that a mid-engined exotic could also be reliable, visible and easy to drive.

Photo: Travis Rigel Lukas Hornung · CC BY 2.0

The story

A defining chapter in Acura history.

Explore the ideas, engineering and context that shaped the Acura NSX, then continue into its specifications and place in the marque's lineage.

Origins

Honda spent the 1980s winning Formula One and then asked what a road car built with the same seriousness would look like. The answer, launched in 1990 and sold in North America as the Acura NSX, was a mid-engined two-seater aimed squarely at Ferrari's 328 and 348 - not to undercut them, but to beat them on the things exotic cars had traditionally been allowed to fail at.

Honda NSX 1993 Castle Hedingham 2008 · Charles01 · CC BY-SA 3.0

Design and engineering

The car's most important feature was its structure. The NSX used an all-aluminium monocoque, the first on a production car, along with aluminium suspension arms, which kept weight down without the fragility of a lightweight special. The engine was a compact V6 mounted transversely behind the cabin, with VTEC variable valve timing, titanium connecting rods and individual throttle bodies - high-revving and tractable at the same time. Shigeru Uehara led the engineering, and the cab-forward glasshouse was shaped for visibility, an idea borrowed from fighter aircraft canopies.

Fo S20162016 0625 151036AA · Matthew Lamb · CC BY-SA 2.0

In production

Development ran through Suzuka and the Nurburgring, and Ayrton Senna, then driving for McLaren-Honda, told the engineers the prototype's chassis was not stiff enough. It was stiffened. The story has been retold often enough to become folklore, but the result is legible in the car: an exotic that steers with precision and does not fight its driver.

1995 Honda NSX Type R Rear · MrWalkr · CC BY-SA 4.0

Legacy

What followed mattered more than the sales figures, which were never large. Rivals could no longer offer heavy clutches, poor visibility, unreliable electrics and a boiling cabin as the price of admission. Gordon Murray has said the NSX reset his benchmarks while he was developing the McLaren F1. Ordinary owners simply found they had a mid-engined car that started every morning.

Chapter 5

The first-generation car ran from 1990 to 2006, gaining a targa roof, a larger engine, fixed headlights and, in Japan, the stripped-out Type R. Honda then left the segment for a decade before a second-generation NSX arrived in 2016, built in Ohio, with a twin-turbo V6 and three electric motors driving through a hybrid all-wheel-drive system. It was fast and technically dense, and it never earned the affection the original had, ending production in 2022.

Chapter 6

The first car's standing has only grown. It remains the clearest statement of what Honda could do once it stopped worrying about what a supercar was supposed to be.

At a glance