Honda’s Acura NSX Flexes American Muscle

The price of the Acura NSX, as tested, is around $196,200.

The Honda Acura NSX is an exotic supercar made in not-so-far-flung Ohio. And, writes Dan Neil, it previews the future of performance design.

Exotic cars usually come from exotic places. Ferraris are made in the Red Keep of Maranello, Italy; Mercedes-AMG in Affalterbach, Germany; McLarens are glued together in Woking, England; while Honda Acura’s new global supercar, the NSX, hails from…Ohio. Central Ohio, at that, the gingham-tablecloth capital of the world.
Does that make the NSX a bit image-challenged? Flagship sports cars usually have a bit more, you know, narrative. Maybe Honda Acura should have placed its Shangri-La on some misty mountaintop in Japan, maybe near the Twin Ring Motegi racetrack, there to receive buyers and pilgrims. The cars could have been built by saffron-robed monks.
Instead, management chose to build these technophilic sex machines in America, right there in Marysville, where the beer is reliably cold and the sushi less so. That is a pretty bold move, brand-wise. I would love to eavesdrop on the mind of a teenager in, say, Dubai, as he contemplates Acura’s new halo car and the phrase “made in Marysville, Ohio, U.S.A.,” which sounds like a faraway infidel fortress.
Global production capacity at the new Performance Manufacturing Center will be ramping up to a respectably rare 1,600 units annually, Acura officials say.

Honda’s Acura NSX Flexes American Muscle

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The stout aluminum door handles of the new NSX telegraph the tactile nature of the car: sturdy, lightweight, sleek, usable. Acura

A sleek, technocratic exercise in sports car design and engineering, the new Acura NSX uses a gas-electric hybrid powertrain, with a ...

Not quite three years ago, the NSX team abandoned its latest planned engine—a sideways-mounted V-6, like the original— because it couldn’t make any more power. The NSX team was able to persuade management to create an all-new engine: 3.5-liter twin-turbocharged, 75-degree V-6 mounted longitudinally amidships, with nominal power of 500 hp. Total system output: 573 hp. Acura

The NSX’s exterior and interior styling was the work of the company’s design studio in California, while much of the engineering was hashed out by a small development team in Ohio. Acura describe it as a joint effort led by the American side. Engineers in Japan were responsible for development of the hybrid-electric parts. Acura

The choice of a larger, hotter, more air-thirsty engine drove the NSX team back to the very beginning. The subsequent design was driving primarily by the need for cooling of the turbochargers, brakes, batteries, gearbox and electric motors. One clue to the car’s inner tech can be seen in this rear view. Note the wraparound grille in rear clip, to help evacuate hot air, as well as the vaned diffuser. Look how small the quad tailpipes are. Acura

Unlike other exotic cars, the NSX has a long list of internal Honda standards for road cars, and there is no flexibility in the rulebook. Traces of the rulebook can be seen in these pictures, in dimensions like the generous wheel arch clearances (to allow for snow chains). The NSX also has a very liveable, but not very exotic-looking, ride height. Honda stipulates minimum ground clearance. Acura

The original Honda Acura NSX (1991-2005) was a breakthrough automobile, with an all-aluminum structure, a screamer of a V-6, sideways amidships, and a perfect composure and drivability. Key to the car’s appeal was the driver’s position, with terrific sightlines ahead over the snubbed nose, like a Can Am car. Modern crash standards would make such a design illegal. Acura

The marquee technology for the NSX is the hybrid’s Twin Motor Unit (TMU), dual motors between the front wheels that act independently. In a corner, the outside front wheel likes to over-drive, while the other checks up as needed to rotate, to turn, to tighten a line. Honda calls its version of torque-vectoring ‘direct yaw control.’ Acura

Ordinarily mid-engine two-seaters have a bit of a ‘frunk,’ a front trunk for storage, but the NSX nosecone is full of big electric motors and plumbing. The rear boot here measures 4.4 cubic feet and it’s the only storage. But NSX lovers may not want to get too attached to that space. The power folding roof to come (as yet unconfirmed) will need to go somewhere. Acura

The detail of the NSX thin, moderist-style mirror and pillar, designed to cut down wind noise. Acura

The NSX’s tailpipe arrays reflect the car’s twin desire to be both powerful and socially unobjectionable. In most on-road circumstances, the car’s exhaust runs through silencers and out through outlets 1 and 4 in the quad-pipe array. In Sport mode,
during periods of high throttle demand, the active exhaust valves will open, sending exhaust gases through all four outlets. The active exhaust valves stay open in Sport + and Track mode. Acura

The stout aluminum door handles of the new NSX telegraph the tactile nature of the car: sturdy, lightweight, sleek, usable. Acura

A sleek, technocratic exercise in sports car design and engineering, the new Acura NSX uses a gas-electric hybrid powertrain, with a potent twin-turbo V-6 amidships putting out 500 hp, combined with the power of three electric motors, one in the back and two in the front. Top speed: 191 mph. Acura

Adding to the new NSX’s strangeness is the fact that this car, with design and engineering led by Americans, so magically embodies the car maker’s most culturally specific brand qualities: Balance, refinement, reserve, execution, safety. Another giant leap for globalism, I guess. In any event the NSX presents as an unexpectedly cool and cerebral exercise in going crazy fast.
It was almost the Duke Nukem of sports cars. The first-generation NSX (1991-2005) appeared out of nowhere, a lightweight, aluminum-bodied, midengine supercar that thrashed the Italian and German incumbents for half the price. It taught the world the word “ergonomics.” The first-gen NSX has the best driver’s position and outward visibility of any closed car I’ve ever been in or will likely be in(the daringly low scuttle and short nose would never pass crash tests today).
It was a delight to drive, and best of all it was built like a Honda.
The greatness of the first NSX has hung over the successor like a curse. After multiple concept iterations, the NSX team had to start over about 30 months ago, when the transverse-mounted V6 they were working with couldn’t make enough power against the competitive set (including Audi R8 and McLaren 570S).

The eventual gas-electric hybrid driveline—based around an all-new twin-turbo V6 (75 degree V, dry-sump lubrication, with direct and port fuel injection) abetted by three electric motors—produces 573 hp and 476 pound-feet torque. That is competitive. Buyers can easily, effortlessly wring out 0-60 mph acceleration in 3 seconds—oof!—and quarter-mile stabs under 12 seconds; and a 191-mph top speed, should you be involved in a car chase.
The cost of complication is weight. Despite its aluminum-intensive space-frame construction, the NSX weighs 3,803 pounds, about 900 pounds heavier than a McLaren 570S with a carbon-composite monocoque. Much of the NSX’s difference in weight—the transaxle’s all-quelling mass-damper, the extensive soundproofing—is devoted to silencing background noise and vibration, offering a bare canvas for sound engineers to paint on.
When the NSX’s performance targets went up so did just about everything else, including project cost and time to market. Even the aesthetics of the new car are driven largely and a bit savagely by its outsize cooling needs. There are six sources of intense heat, including the engine and the three liquid-cooled motors, as well as the 9-speed dual-clutch gearbox, the lithium batteries and power electronics. There are also four mighty brake rotors, steel or optional carbon ceramic, that need cooling. The thermal targets required a total of 10 heat exchangers.
Acura will, in due course, increase the output for more track-focused versions of the car. I want to see where they put more radiators. On the more esoteric side, I note in the shadow illustrations that the NSX preserves space for a future active aero package in the rear, probably in a competition car. That’s called package protection.
Around a racetrack (I had my go at Lime Rock Park last week), the NSX is definitely its own cat among contemporary supercars. The motive tech inside—twin-turbo V6, hybrid-electric all-wheel drive—rivals anything south of seven figures in terms of packaging and complication. The front electric motors provide torque-vectoring steering, or as Acura likes to call it, direct yaw control.
Whereas other systems (McLaren, Porsche) use a single motor between the front wheels, the NSX Twin Motor Unit acts independently side to side, so it’s able to overdrive the outside wheel while checking up the inside wheel, helping the car turn, and just rip down the asphalt toward a corner apex. Once fully committed in a corner the NSX’s steady-state grip is remarkable. The steering is reasonably quick (1.9 turns, lock to lock) and response sharpens nicely in Track mode. But, the NSX has almost nothing by way of road feel, because of its double-pinion rack-and-pinion steering with electric assist and double-pivot wishbone suspension, all designed to eliminate torque steer from these very same motors. The electric-power steering unit uses motor torque to mimic steering feel.

2017 Acura NSX

The price of the Acura NSX, as tested, is around $196,200. Photo: Acura

Price, as tested: $196,200 (est)
Powertrain: Integrated all-wheel drive gas-electric hybrid, with: longitudinally midmounted, twin-turbocharged 3.5-liter V6 with dry-sump lubrication and variable valve timing; permanent-magnet, water-cooled direct-drive motor/generator for torque-fill and regenerative braking; nine-speed dual-clutch automatic transaxle with paddle shifters and multi-mode drive programs; twin front axle permanent-magnet traction motors with torque-vectoring logic.
Maximum system power/torque: 573 hp/476 pound-feet
Length/weight: 176.0 inches/3,803 pounds
Wheelbase: 103.5 inches
0-60 mph: 3 seconds (est., with Launch Control)
EPA fuel economy: 20/22/21 mpg, city/highway/combined
Cargo capacity: 4.4 cubic feet

The torque-vectoring system’s power is, essentially, to help the car hold and even tighten its line on the fly, that is, to let the car comfortably corner right up against the tires’ limits, and hold it there. That edge-finding ability changes the way you go round a road course, since with it you can carry more speed into a corner and pick up the throttle sooner when exiting the corner.
The NSX has four drive modes, including Track, but the nature of the beast is such you can’t just switch off the computers. Even in Track, there’s a comfortable centeredness and margin of understeer dialed in to this set of algorithms.
The NSX is available with the regular summer tires (19/20 inch, f/r) or the track-day gumballs. The NSX engineers gave us sly winks at the mention of these.
On pace, the NSX flows, it glides, it arcs at 1+ g with nary a care, it whispers hymns of rubber and flies on steady wings of dynamics software. The brakes are powerful; the brake-pedal simulator, I guess, is firm, with sweet, precise uptake. Appropriately, given its primary mission as a road car, the NSX’s chassis isn’t totally snubbed down, even in Track mode. The magnetic-fluid dampers allow the car to float around a bit, corner to corner, dissipating energies as gently as possible. Only at Lime Rock’s low-speed, right-left chicane could I actually sense the heft of the car in a bit of butt waggle.

The tailpipe, which can be surisingly quiet. Photo: Acura

The acceleration spanks through the nine forward gears—thum thum thum—without hesitation, thanks to the torque-fill from the rear electric motor (47 hp, 109 lb-ft.), right up to a 7,500 rpm redline.
It’s so muted! This car has acoustic tubes directing engine intake sounds into the cabin, as well as active exhaust valves that entrain the quad-exhaust outlets, and still the car merely warbles up through the gears with muffled reports at upshifts, like a starter’s pistol under
a pillow. You could do hole shots in a hospital zone. This is like the ambient-chill channel of sports cars.If you needed a single suggestive image of the near-term of sports cars in the 21st century, look at the NSX’s rear end. That big bodacious air-spilling hinder, and those itty-bitty tailpipes.
Twist the dynamics-mode knob to the left and you get to Quiet mode. Here, the NSX will pull away using only electric motors, and will avoid firing the gas-engine so as not to disturb your neighbors.