How NSX morphed into U.S.-built twin-turbo monster

When engineers at Honda Motor Co. pitched the idea of a revived NSX sports car to President Takanobu Ito, it was just a few weeks after Japan’s March 11, 2011, earthquake.

The appetite for pricey exotic cars was understandably limited.

“President Ito was very busy just thinking about how the company could survive,” recalled Erik Berkman, head of the U.S.-based Acura Business Planning Office formed last year to rethink the premium brand’s lineup and stoke stagnating sales.

The original concept called for the same three-motor hybrid system in the production car that debuted this week at the Detroit motor show, with one important caveat: It had a humdrum transverse-mounted naturally aspirated V-6 engine.

But when the slick, race-inspired prototypes made it to the track, the error of their thinking quickly became apparent.

Fixing it

“There was an incongruity in that it looks faster than it’s supposed to be,” Berkman said. So engineers set about fixing it.

“The right way would be an all-new engine, even though it’s going to cost money and it’s going to be a development tear-up,” Berkman said. The first prototypes debuted publicly with the original engine, as engineers toiled in secret to soup it up.

What they delivered was the twin-turbocharged, direct-injection, longitudinal V-6 deployed in the production version.

The idea of building the car in the U.S., however, was the brainchild of Ito.

It dates back to the initial proposal. After the meeting, Ito commented -- almost thinking aloud -- “I wonder if we could do this in North America,” Berkman recalled.

By the fall of 2011, the team had done due diligence on possible U.S. development and production, and was green lighted.

Boutique workshop

Most r&d was done in at the company’s development center in Raymond, Ohio -- though the drivetrain still came from Japan.

To seal the car’s American roots, Acura created a special boutique NSX workshop called the Performance Manufacturing Center, or PMC, in Marysville, Ohio. About 100 employees will be working there to hand build each car, pricing for which will start in the mid-$150,000 range when orders begin this summer.

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