If there is one country that is famous for copyright infringement and knockoffs, it's China. That means that the Chinese patent office is not the place to put something that you want to keep secret.
Acura supposedly gave these patent drawings for the 2015 NSX to that very office. Guess what? They just leaked out.
When Acura unveiled the NSX Concept at the 2012 Detroit Auto Show, they said that the car was definitely intended for production. It would be developed by teams in America and would be on sale in a matter of three years as a 2015 model.
There have been a lot of skeptics, as Acura has promised and reneged on an NSX successor for ages. Audi even went so far as to call it vaporware.
As a refresher, the successor to the original Japanese supercar would be powered by a mid-mounted V6 as well as electric motors, making it an all-wheel drive hybrid. The motors would also be able to vector torque from side to side, making for some hella crisp (technical term) handling.
As you can see from the allegedly leaked patent drawings, if this is it the actual production car looks to be quite similar to the concept that we saw earlier this year. Because this is coming third-hand from China take it with a few hundred grains of salt.
Honestly, as far as we can tell, it looks exactly the same as the concept as well as the roadster that Tony Stark drove for about eight seconds in The Avengers. Like, it's almost as if someone just made a render from it, stretched it out a bit, and posted a watermark on it.
We were looking for the production NSX to make its debut in Detroit this coming January, but we heard that might not happen.
Perhaps the timetable for the official unveil has now been moved forward again so Acura can give people a reason to be excited about... something?
UPDATE: We were right to be skeptical. There is a reason you can't tell this apart from the concept: It is the concept. These images were actually released by the European copyright office just after the concept was unveiled in Detroit.
(Hat Tip to Tycho and Car News China!)