While movie cars often get instant celebrity status, many simply don’t make it out of the studios. From liability concerns to the way that many units are run hard and put away wet, the life of a picture car often isn’t glamorous. Every so often, however, one survives. Remember the Acura NSX Roadster that Tony Stark drove in “The Avengers”? Turns out it’s actually still around, and Acura is in the process of soft-launching the idea of auctioning it off to a private collector.
Hang on a second—”The Avengers” hit the silver screens in 2012, but the production-spec hybrid NSX wasn’t ready to be unveiled until 2015, so what’s underneath the concept car coachwork? Well, it is an NSX, just not a modern NSX.
It’s easy to forget that between 10 and 15 years ago, high-mileage examples of the original NSX were cheap. Like, sometimes less than $30,000 cheap. Our own Steve Balistreri once scored an NSX for $25,000, and it wasn’t some clapped-out, rebuilt-title thing, but instead a perfectly good driver-condition car. Given the values at the time, it shouldn’t be surprising that Acura decided the perfect base for this movie car was a 1991 NSX with a whopping 252,000 miles on the clock.
Once a donor car was selected, Trans FX in Oxnard, Calif. set about stripping off the body panels, cutting off the roof, and crafting a fiberglass body in the spirit of the 2012 NSX show car, just topless. Sure, a few alterations were necessary to fit the proportions of the NA1 NSX and accommodate for rooflessness, the headlights are dummy pieces, and the custom car itself bears merely a passing resemblance to the eventual production-spec model, but the end result is convincing enough for Hollywood.
A two-inch drop has it sitting low on 18-inch wheels that look huge on what are fundamentally ’90s proportions, the merlot paint still has gleam to its flop, and yes, this NSX dressed up as another NSX has a five-speed manual transmission. As for the interior, it’s pretty much like 1991 in there, save for the addition of aftermarket seats.Hey, when you don’t need dashboard shots, why change what works?
While the NSX Roadster had to be operable for the film, it wasn’t a stunt car, so it wasn’t beat on. Nor was it made to be, which might make this the slowest running and driving NSX in history. See, Edmunds got a chance to drive it back in 2012, and noted that it came with a serious limitation.
In deference to the Stark NSX’s compromised structure, that it was engineered to run only up to 30 mph, and its near-future life as a promotional item for the film, Acura asks that we keep our driving speed to under 20 mph. Since it’s Acura’s car, its PR guy is standing right there and there’s a severe vibration in the structure, we oblige. So what we can say is that, up to about 20 mph, the Stark NSX feels and drives like the NSX that it is.
Ah, there lies the rub. Even though the NSX was available with a targa top, cutting the roll bar off comes with consequences that effectively render this cinema one-off a low-speed showpiece. It should be able to idle around a car show staging area just fine, but even though it’s essentially a production car under the shiny surface, it’s not really meant for the street.
Perhaps that’s why Acura is looking for interested bidders at Monterey Car Week’s most exclusive event, The Quail. It’ll make a fabulous addition to the brand’s display, but it’s best suited to someone who already has an NSX or three that they can use spiritedly. Still, if you’re interested in checking it out and were lucky enough to secure tickets to The Quail, head on down to Monterey Car Week. Maybe you’ll even run into some of my colleagues along the way.
Top graphic images: Acura; Paramount Pictures/Marvel Entertainment
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Finally, the perfect car to cruise around NYC, where the speed limit across most of the five boroughs is just 25mph.
Hmmm… it has a manual?
Then maybe I’d want it. But I’m gonna guess it’ll get sold for a price way higher than I’m willing to pay
Its not a 1st gen nsx coupe so no. If you want something special a high rpm 3.5 v6 would be nice. If I wanted something with the roof cut off I’d buy a miata instead of a sawzall.
I always really liked the look of this, but it feels like a waste.
It’s weird to me how much Acura must have paid to be in the Marvel movies despite how little in their lineup actually could be effectively promoted through that deal. Being the SHIELD equivalent of a government Tahoe meant they were hero cars less often than they were cannon fodder. IIRC none of the main characters even drives a car, but I could be forgetting something. Watching someone park their current model year midsize CUV in an establishing shot isn’t an memorable as these marketing people seem to think. When they actually had their chance to shine brightest as Tony Stark’s car, the car he replaced his R8 with, they had to make something up because nothing in their lineup fit. What a waste. At least I got a fun Acura Mjolnir key chain out of it at a car show.
IMO a normal, old NSX that was shown to have been modified by Tony to be powered by an arc reactor or something would have been a pop culture homerun for Acura. You wouldn’t even have to say anything about it. It would just have Iron Man’s chest for a hood. It never hurt the real world popularity of DeLorean to be powered by a Mr. Fusion. Chevy and Ford aren’t complaining when their classics are hero cars. I would even say this approach would have been more true to the character and likely have reappeared as an easter egg later in the series, even after the partnership was over. Sure, it wouldn’t have moved a specific product, but neither did this thing. I think it could have given Acura more of a mainstream spot in pop culture, though.
Can we talk about the quality of RDJ’s lifted shoes..
Look at him shaking hands with 6 foot Chris Evans..
However note there are no seats in the shot? or at least not these seats…
Then while driving away RDJ’s head is towering over Mark Ruffalo (5′ 8″).
That’s real movie magic!!
Alway funny to me that Tony Stark had an Iron Man suit and thus how insufferable driving a production car must have been for him. Like “traffic? I have to sit in THIS shit???”
No.
I mean, the ROI of finding countless stashes of coke in every nook and cranny might be worth it. It’s like a DeLorean with better reliability.
Unfortunate they removed the roll bars. I assume reassembling those would cut into its value as a movie car. Beautiful one off though. Interesting that they left the interior largely alone.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the buyer puts this back to stock. Even high mileage, these might be worth enough that someone would put in that effort.
Wouldn’t reattaching a new roof be too big a hurdle? If it were me, I’d just swap the drivetrain into a low-mileage automatic car.
Its possible it could be. But no, I don’t think that would be too big a hurdle. If I can cut the floor out of a whole SUV, and everything but the floor off another SUV and put them together in my garage (which I’ve done), I think a quality shop is able to put the body on a rack, pull it straight, and weld a new roof and roll bar back in to it. People do things that ridiculous with classic muscle cars to get that numbers matching cache. I’m just assuming that this is as valuable to a car collector as a 1st gen Camaro SS.
Which will be worth more, this car at auction, or an unmodified NA1?
I already have cars that either can’t or shouldn’t be driven over 30 mph so I’ll pass.
The hardest of hard nopes.
You say “weird” as if this isn’t the design it always should have been.
I suspect it’ll be a bidding war between Seinfeld and Leno