Honda & Acura NSX NA1 · NA2

The NSX range, and what to actually buy

Underneath every one is the same idea: a mid-engine, all-aluminium V6 with VTEC, honed with Ayrton Senna leaning on the engineers, and screwed together to a standard nothing else from Japan came close to in 1990. What changes across the fifteen-year run is the engine, the gearbox, and how far Honda pushed the hardcore versions.

The 1997 line in the sand

For the first six years the manual was a 3.0 C30A with a five-speed. In 1997 the manual got the bigger 3.2 C32B and a six-speed, and that is the version most people chase: more torque, a better box, bigger brakes. Pre-1997 manuals are the pure original; 1997-on manuals are the quicker, easier-to-live-with drive. Both are brilliant.

The automatic reality

The automatic is a four-speed, and it only ever sat behind the 3.0 C30A, all the way to 2005. It is down on power too, around 252 hp in the US and 265 PS in Japan against 270 to 290 for the manuals. From about 1995 it gained a manual-shift mode (SportShift, or F-Matic), which makes it a lovely relaxed cruiser. Just know what it is: the softer, slower NSX, and always the small engine. Do not pay manual money for one.

The 2002 facelift (a looks change, not an engine change)

In 2002 the pop-up headlights finally gave way to fixed projector units, with a new nose and wider rear track. This is the bit people muddle: the engine change was 1997, the headlight change was 2002, two different years doing two different things. A 2002-on car is not automatically a 3.2. If it is an automatic, it is still the 3.0. The pop-up cars (to 2001) are the purist shape; the fixed-headlight cars (2002 to 2005) are the rarest, because production had wound right down by then.

The specials

The halo is the NSX-R: the 1992 car (C30A, stripped of everything, 483 built) and the far rarer 2002 car (C32B, carbon aero, around 1,270 kg, just 140 built). Between the base car and the R sit the JDM Type S and the properly hardcore Type S-Zero (no air-con, no airbags, roughly 30 made). Rarest of all is the 2005 NSX-R GT, a Super-GT homologation job with maybe five built. Every one of those is Japan-only. America got its own answer: the 1999 Zanardi Edition, a fixed-roof, manual, lightweight NSX in Formula Red, 51 built and numbered.

Japan vs America, and the 280 PS thing

Same car, two badges: Honda NSX in Japan, Acura NSX in the States. The one number that confuses people is power. Japan advertised 280 PS for both the 3.0 and the 3.2 manual, because that was the industry's self-imposed ceiling at the time. The US had no such cap, so Acura quoted the honest figures: 270 hp for the 3.0 and 290 hp for the 3.2. The JDM car is not slower, the number is just polite.

So which NSX do you actually want?

If you want the driver's car, buy a manual, and if the budget reaches a 1997-on one you get the 3.2 and the six-speed, which is the sweet spot of the whole range. If you want a relaxed weekend cruiser and the price is right, the automatic is a genuinely nice thing, just never confuse it with the manual underneath. Whatever you land on, buy the straightest, least-messed-with car you can find, because a tidy aluminium shell with real history is the hard part, not the mechanicals.