Back in the salad days before the financial upheaval of 2008, Honda’s Acura division was reportedly planning to build not one, but two new NSX models. The first was/is the on again off again heir to the NSX throne (then a V10 rear-drive supercar, now the much ballyhooed hybrid all-wheel-drive affair revealed at January’s Detroit Auto Show). The second was to be a smaller, less expensive version, creatively dubbed by Honda internals as the “Small NSX.” Never let engineers name your pets, folks.
In any event, the Small NSX that was said to be cancelled before we even knew it existed is reportedly back on the table. Unnamed sources tell Motor Trend that the sports car will really be a scaled-back version of the NSX, too, with a mid-engine layout and potentially a version the same hybrid SH-AWD system.
It is really anyone’s guess as to which corporate powertrain will offer motivation, should this baby NSX see the light of day, though turbocharging one of the company’s four-cylinder mills seems like a good bet.
With the full-boat NSX still on track for a debut in 2015, expect to wait quite a while before the junior version is available – 2017 is a reasonable guess. When the car is ready, pending another once-in-a-lifetime financial system meltdown, we are told to expect sticker prices in the realm of $50,000 to $60,000.
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