Unveiled at a time when Honda engines once powered F1 champions to victory, today the 1991 Honda/Acura NSX is still considered one of the greatest. In a recent article, Edmunds Inside Line places the NSX at the top of its “Greatest V6-Powered Cars Ever” list.
“Greatness for the purposes of this list is defined as superiority in the context of the car’s production era, standard setting for future vehicles, advancing automotive technology and being plain wicked bitchin’. By those standards, every vehicle listed here slots in perfectly.” – John Pearley Huffman, Inside Line
Here’s what they had to say about the NSX:
“1. 1991 Acura NSX: It was the first car Honda sold in America with the VTEC variable valve timing system. Today it’s hard to find any car that doesn’t have variable valve timing. It was the first production car sold in America using an all-aluminum structure. Today, that’s still cutting-edge. It was a sports car so delicate in its response and so quick in its reflexes that Ferrari went back to the drawing board and started building better cars. And yet it was a sports car that could be driven and used every day like an Integra.
The midengine NSX reset the standards for every production car. Not just sports cars, every car. Not to mention that the great Ayrton Senna had a hand in its development.
Power came from an all-aluminum DOHC 3.0-liter V6 making 270 hp and an F1 soundtrack. And it revved to 8,000 rpm. Big numbers in 1991.
From two decades out, the NSX looks even better than it did back then. It was the car of the future then, and in many ways it still is.”
Visit insideline.com for the full list.
[Source: Inside Line]
For a 20 year design is still looks damn good! I actually prefer the original front with pop-up headlight over the refreshed 2002 design. The newer front doesn’t match the rest of the body IMO.