The Honda NSX is back. Concept unveiled at Detroit.
Honda: NSX will go on sale within 3 years
By Bob Hume, 10th January 2012
I was delighted to see the news that Honda/Acura has just unveiled the NSX concept at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. The project had been canned a few years ago when the recession was beginning to bite hard, in an effort to save money.
It was a nice touch that the man who runs the company, Takanobu Ito, presented the concept to the world - he headed the engineering team that gave us the original NSX 25 years ago. Ito also confirmed that whilst this is still a concept, a new model similar to it will be available globally within three years.
"That was the biggest engineering challenge of our lives," said Ito. "The key attributes had to be power and weight, which is why we ended up making it out of aluminium."
The Honda NSX is back. Concept unveiled at Detroit.
The production NSX will be developed by the company's engineering teams in the US and built at its plant in Ohio for all markets.
Like the previous NSX, it will have a mid-mounted V6 engine, this time with direct fuel injection to drive the rear wheels but also two electric motors mounted at the front to give it all-wheel drive. Honda calls the system SH-AWD (Super Handling All Wheel Drive), and it can adjust the torque sent to each end on demand, driving through a twin-clutch paddle-shift transmission with built-in electric motor.
It will go on sale first in the US under Honda's Acura luxury sub-brand and will come to Europe a little later as a Honda. The car will be shown at Geneva in March wearing Honda badges.
