We’ve heard rumors about an NSX Type-R in the pipeline but apparently Honda/Acura is pondering even more variants of their halo car platform. Racers, convertibles(?!) really everything a kid could want.
In a conversation with Autocar, Honda’s chief engineer for the NSX Ted Klaus talked about “lightweight, non-hybrid and all-electric versions” one of which would be the Type-R. The word “convertible” was also thrown around.
With the standard NSX in production, Klaus said it represented an opportunity for Honda to ‘experiment’ with new technology. ‘It’s a special car, with new technology, developing technology, that we can be leaders in and help us understand where the brand is going,’ he said.
“Klaus said Honda was now at various stages with the NSX. It had completed development of the standard model and was starting to look at the NSX as a platform and a way to ‘start to dream of new technologies.’”
Klaus described the superlight NSX that ran at Pikes Peak last month as “the general direction we wish to go” with the car. The rest of his quotes are standard company-representative platitudes like “we could, we want to, there’s nothing stopping us.”
But it sounds like there’s legitimate desire to blow the NSX out with a lot more variety than what’s currently on offer. Maybe motivated so Honda can “get a return on the significant investment it has made in the new NSX” and keep their fancy new Performance Manufacturing Center in Ohio busy, as posited by Autocar.
Honda’s already proven that the NSX platform is malleable with the full-electric and unofficial superlegerra-spec versions they ran up Pikes Peak. And it’s hard to disagree with the idea that they’d try to milk everything they can out of a car they engineered for years and years and hyped for almost as long.
My instinct says to put the “convertible” idea in the “probably no” pile, but I guess I can’t say how hard it’d actually be to build without understanding the existing car’s structure. Maybe the body’s ready to handle having its roof hacked off! Regardless; full-electric and completely-combustion versions of the NSX would be pretty cool. What an awesome way to see different propulsion technologies go head-to-head that’d be!