The Acura NSX has had an interesting, if slightly disappointing, trajectory. While the first generation is famous as one of the most legendary sports cars of the 1990s, the long-awaited follow-up, which arrived after a 10-year hiatus, was nowhere near as well-received by car enthusiasts.
Today, rumors and speculation about a potential return of the NSX nameplate have been circulating for years. Although Honda had made tentative plans for a new all-electric model, those plans were later postponed, making it highly unlikely we’d see a new car wearing the iconic badge in the next couple of years. The failure of the second-gen model is likely a major factor in Acura’s hesitation to bring the NSX back. Let’s take a look back at a model that had big shoes to fill but wasn’t the right fit for the market at the time.
The Second-Gen Acura NSX: A Failed Experiment
2017 Acura NSX Front ViewAcura
Acura NSX (Second Generation)
Engine
3.5L twin-turbo V6 + 3 electric motors
Horsepower
573 hp
Torque
476 lb-ft
0-60
~3 seconds
Top Speed
191 mph
The second generation of the Acura NSX was a massive gamble that did not pay off. It was an attempt on Honda’s part to recapture the lightning in a bottle that the model’s legendary first generation had been. After many years of development and several obstacles, the new NSX arrived in 2015 and went on sale for the 2017 model year. Its design distantly echoed the original while building a new, high-tech personality for the model.
The second-gen NSX was powered by a mid-mounted 3.5-liter twin-turbo V6 engine paired with three electric motors. The setup resulted in an output of 573 hp and 476 lb-ft of torque. A nine-speed automatic transmission sent power to all four wheels, whereas the original was rear-wheel drive.
2017 Acura NSX Side ViewAcura
Honda used the phrase “human-centered supercar” as a guiding principle when coming up with the new NSX’s design. As with the first-gen NSX, the driver was at the heart of everything, and on-track performance was considered equally important to smoothness and comfort on the road. While the late, great Ayrton Senna had played a crucial role in the development and fine-tuning of the first-gen NSX, for the second generation, Honda drew on the expertise of several racing drivers, including 24 Hours of Daytona winner Graham Rahal and the Indy 500 winners Dario Franchitti and Takuma Sato.
The interior was not the main focus during the NSX’s development, which was why it wasn’t quite as premium as other aspects of the car. Most components of the cabin were borrowed from less high-end Honda models, such as the infotainment system. Navigation, Apple CarPlay/Android Auto, Bluetooth connectivity, and two USB ports were all included as standard. While an eight-speaker sound system was the default, a nine-speaker ELS Studio unit was an option.
The engineers’ effort, however, resulted in a model that failed to live up to its illustrious nameplate. Honda only sold a total of 1,814 of them in the US. The model achieved its best calendar-year sales in 2017, moving 581 units. For the 2022 model year, Acura introduced the NSX Type S as a farewell edition limited to 300 examples in the US. The variant received upgrades to the fuel injectors, turbochargers, and intercoolers, bumping the output up to 600 hp and 492 lb-ft of torque.
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The Complex Journey That Led To The Creation Of The New NSX
Silver 2007 Acura ASCC frontAcura
The new NSX may not have achieved the result Honda hoped for, but it certainly took a long time even to reach the production stage. Its journey to the showroom involved two concept cars, one global financial crisis, and around a decade of development. The first concept that attempted to imagine what a successor to the first-gen NSX could look like was the Advanced Sports Car Concept (ASCC), which was introduced in 2007 at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit.
Silver 2007 Acura ASCC side viewAcura
The ASCC was radically different from the model that inspired it: it had a front-engine layout and a 5.0-liter V10 under the hood that produced around 450 hp. We don’t have much more information about the ASCC, but we do know that any plans Honda might have had to produce it were quickly abandoned due to the financial catastrophe the following year brought about.
The 2008 crisis brought development work to a halt, as Honda hunkered down to survive the crisis and focused on safe models rather than experimental concepts and sports cars. It wasn’t until 2012, a few years later, that a new NSX concept was revealed.
The second attempt was much closer to what the second-gen NSX ended up being. It had a similar design and the same engine on board (although it had two electric motors rather than three). This concept car introduced the idea of an NSX with a hybrid powertrain, setting the stage for the production model, which attempted to balance performance with green credentials. Three years later, in 2015, the concept finally became a production car, but it remained on the market for only six model years due to poor driver reception.
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The Second-Gen NSX On The Used Market Today
2017 Acura NSX front angle in white while drivingHonda
As expected for a car that did not encounter much commercial success, the NSX has depreciated rapidly, even though it hasn’t been out of production that long. Its starting price at release was $156,000, the equivalent of around $210,000 today. If you’re shopping for one on the used market today, on the other hand, the cheapest examples would set you back around $100,000, and even the priciest low-mileage cars are in the $155,000 region.
Meanwhile, the first-gen NSX is worth a similar amount and is far more sought-after than its successor, to the point where its most expensive examples overlap with the cheapest second-gen cars. The first-gen NSX’s starting price at launch was $60,600, or roughly $150,000 in today’s money. Today, the cheapest examples (with a higher mileage and a poorer maintenance record) can be found for around $50,000. The most expensive ones are usually in the $150,000 range, with a few off-the-charts exceptions exceeding $200,000.
A Modern Successor? Not So Fast
2017 Acura NSX front 3/4 angle in white while parkedAcura
For a few years now, Honda has talked about potential plans to introduce an all-electric successor to the NSX. A third generation would offer the model a fresh start, radically different from the failed experiment that the second-gen model had been. However, it looks like Honda might be hesitant to take that particular risk, having been burned before by the second-gen NSX’s poor commercial success. There’s also the question of electrification: while all-electric powertrains had, until not too long ago, been the main focus of Acura’s strategy for the future, today it looks like hybrids might be the name of the game for the brand.
2017 Acura NSX Interior ViewAcura
Acura recently announced that the planned EV successor to the NSX has been postponed, however it might be released in a different form as the company pivots towards hybridization. The original plan was for 60% of Acura’s sales to be all-electric vehicles by 2030, bypassing hybrids altogether. Now, partial electrification via hybrid powertrains is the main trend. This will help hesitant customers who aren’t quite ready to make the jump into full EV ownership.
While we might not see a new vehicle wearing the NSX nameplate by 2030, as Acura had originally planned, there is still a chance that the model could arrive on the market within the next decade. Like its predecessor, the third-gen NSX has a difficult road ahead before the supercar ever reaches production. However, we hope it will have a better trajectory once it eventually hits the market.
Sources: Honda, Acura
