JDM HONDA 1991 HONDA NSX MANUAL

The Kardashianesque rear end so characteristic of the NSX is the product of several considerations. The car had to be lengthened a bit to fit the V6, but the rear overhang was already quite substantial, so a little extra wheelbase was not an issue. Thanks to the car’s feather weight, this was enough to get it to reach 100kph from a standstill in 5.9 seconds and attain a top speed of 270kph (167mph), which was certainly supercar territory at the time.

JDM HONDA 1991 HONDA NSX MANUAL

Nor was the Honda V6, come to that, but with a new DOHC head and other improvements, Honda coaxed 280hp out of it (when mated to a manual transmission). Hey, it was the biggest Honda could muster at the time – only Toyota and Nissan had access to V8s, and theirs were not sporty engines. But the American market would probably prefer something a bit bigger, and the Ferrari objective determined that a moderately-sized 4-cyl. – quite a Honda thing to do – wrapped into a lightweight shell. Initially, Honda envisaged a Lotus-like approach: a highly-strung 2-litre 4-cyl. The benchmark that Honda were using was the Ferrari 328, so a mid-engined layout seemed most appropriate.

Work on the New Sportscar X (hence NSX) started in 1984, under the aegis of Shigeru Uehara, who soon determined that Honda’s usual FWD ways would not cut it. And because they were not doing this out of spite, unlike Lamborghini and Monteverdi, they took their time to craft an incredibly reliable and well-thought out machine – a Japanese supercar, rather than something that strictly competed on Ferrari’s terms. But even still, when Honda decided to create a real full-size sports car, not bound by the stringent rules of the Japanese taxman, they aimed high and they hit hard. OK, so this Ferruccio metaphor is a bit of a stretch. And, 20-plus year later, in Japan and under pretty different circumstances, with the Honda NSX. The rest is history, though said history did repeat itself, albeit in Switzerland, with Peter Monteverdi in the late ‘60s. Lamborghini did just that, but also snapped up a few ex-Ferrari workers and engineers to create a rival sports car. Back in the early ‘60s, Ferruccio Lamborghini famously told Enzo Ferrari that his cars could be better, prompting Ferrari to tell his client to go back to his tractor factory.

Jdm honda 1991 honda nsx