The original Acura NSX is a pivotal car. Not only was it the first production car with an aluminum unibody, it was developed with input from Satoru Nakajima, Bobby Rahal, and Ayrton Senna, and it forced Ferrari to make better cars. When it went on sale in 1990, it was quicker than the Ferrari 348 of the time, far cheaper, and more liveable. Hell, it’s arguably the first everyday supercar. Ease of use and strong reliability make these late-20th-century marvels collectable today, and Acura just showed up for American owners in a big way—by launching 3,000 new parts to keep original NSX examples on the road.
For years, Honda has offered restoration services for the original NSX in Japan, giving tired JDM examples a new lease on life. However, many of the parts involved didn’t trickle across the Pacific until now. This meant that for years, owners had to scrounge around for second-hand trim pieces and such to keep their ’90s supercars nice. While limited parts support did make some sense from a business perspective way back when the NSX was at the bottom of its depreciation curve, times have changed. Thankfully, support has too.
Technically, there are two different categories of new parts that Acura’s launching. The first, dubbed Genuine Honda Reproduction Parts, will be identical to the equivalent parts already on an original NSX, from materials to design to production processes. The second, dubbed Honda Compatible Parts, have been redesigned and remade using modern skills, insight, materials, and methods. They might not be era-appropriate for a bubble-wrapped ultra-low-mileage collector-grade car, but they should be perfect for owners who actually drive their machines.
Indeed, parts prone to the ravages of time, such as door weatherstripping and the rubbers around the front and rear windows, are showing as available in the Honda Dream Shop. Demolish a front lip on some road debris? That’s available, and not even that expensive. Signal lights, seat components, bumper covers … there’s a whole load of stuff now available for your own weekend toy, which makes keeping these exceptionally reliable performance cars going a whole lot easier.
Plus, those 3,000-plus parts are just the first wave to launch in America. Certain SKUs are likely still to come, and the possibilities are tantalizing. It would be incredible to get a new dash pad to replace one that’s spent the past three decades in the sun belt, for example. Or a new engine cover seal to replace one that’s dry-rotted over time.
Perhaps the most interesting part of this is a quote from American Honda Motor Company, Inc. executive vice president Mamadou Diallo: “Honda Heritage Parts was created to help our customers enjoy their classic Acura and Honda performance models, and it’s appropriate that we begin with an iconic model like the first-generation Acura NSX.” Reading between the lines, “begin with” is a hint that support for some more attainable older models may be coming in the future. The Honda S2000 is an obvious candidate, but beyond that, who knows where this initiative will lead? There’s certainly collector value in the Integra Type R, and given how much those share with more affordable Integras like the RS, GS, and GS-R, greater parts support for a sport compact icon would be much appreciated.
For now, it’s just cool that Acura is finally giving its moonshot the support it deserves in America, and with modern convenience too. While you can order the new parts from your local Acura dealer, if you shop for them on the Honda Dream Shop, some dealers will ship them to your door. Imagine arriving home from the office on Friday to a box of NSX parts on your doorstep, ready for weekend tinkering. Wouldn’t that be nice?
Top graphic image: Acura
The NSX was the first exotic car you could drive to the store for a gallon of milk. I mean, you could drive the others too…but you might not get there, you dip into a diminishing store of reliability, you get poor fuel economy and barely fit through the door opening, etc.
I’ve said before, in the knife-to-a-gunfight battle of exotic cars, the NSX is the knife except it’s a lightsaber. Accessible top-tier handling, flexible power and Honda build quality back when that really meant something yields a package that performs far, far beyond what its modest numbers suggest it should.
And Honda stamping out new parts? Dammit. That’s even better. “Yeah, keep driving them. That’s what they’re for. We’ll help you keep them on the road.”
On my rainy fall commute yesterday, I saw a hero driving a first gen NSX in traffic. From the wheels and exhaust it was evident he does this a lot. God speed ratty NSX guy.
Proof heros do live among us.
This is neat, immediately went to find the cheapest first gen NSX I could find, and they are still 100K.
Wake me up to the Dream Shop when I can get parts for my 2013 Si.
I wonder if there are/will be enough parts that DT could build one from scratch in his backyard?
This information is already hurtful enough, I won’t go to the dreamshop to suffer even more.