For sale: the NA2 Honda NSX we’d buy

When people find out you work for PH, the second question they always ask is what car would you buy. (The first question traditionally being something funny about your insider knowledge of MS-DOS command prompts.) Without any additional criteria, this is always an impossible job. Because like most PHers, every staffer exposed to the classifieds on a daily basis has a revolving short list of cars that move between fantasy and reality – to say nothing of the long list, which is basically a greatest hits of every notable performance model produced by every carmaker of note. 

But as we move into the final few years of exclusively combustion-powered cars, there are some that seem to offer a copper-bottomed mix of reputational heft, superlative heritage and usable modernity – without requiring a jackpot-winning EuroMillions ticket. The original Honda NSX is among them. Granted, cheap it ain’t. But nothing is these days, so let’s skip the retrospective, and move on to why the NA2 with pop-up headlights occupies a particularly hallowed space in the post-millennium enthusiast experience. 

Firstly, its development story, which stretches all the way back into the mid-‘80s, has more twists and turns than an Aesop fable. It features underdogs and lone wolves, supercomputers and fighter jets, and, most prominently, the never-say-die attitude of a Japanese manufacturer adamant that it could overcome anything built in Europe through sheer force of will. And extraordinary technical nous. Secondly, Honda junked the V6 it had originally conceived in favour of a much more complicated, high-revving unit that incorporated its proprietary VTEC system. 

Thirdly, despite its cutting-edge design and dedication to low weight and height, it was generally underappreciated in its day. Or at least, underappreciated by supercar buyers, who were not sufficiently convinced to turn away from the usual suspects en masse. According to the vendor, this New Formula Red example was one of just 11 UK-supplied cars from the year 2000. Sure, the NSX had been on sale for a decade by then, but the 3.2-litre, six-speed manual version being sold at the time is in an evolutionary sweet spot, retaining the pop-up headlights that would be lost in the 2002 facelift and yet with the more powerful engine introduced in 1997. 

So it looks brilliant. Timelessly good really, on its original 16- and 17-inch, seven-spoke wheels. And it is rare (honestly, when was the last time you saw one?), and while it was a technological tour de force in the ‘90s, now it seems like a throwback to a purer era of driver engagement. Everything about it – engine, transmission, chassis – is primed to offer sensations that most modern supercars, for all their blistering performance, struggle to replicate. Moreover, thanks to the engineers’ diligence at the time, you can generally count on its maker’s famed reliability, too. 

At least, that’s the vibe we get from this example, which itself is just as you’d want it to be: bog standard but beautifully maintained and with just enough miles to know that it has been used consistently, without one eye continually fixed on resale value. The market has seen to that anyway – at £119k, the NSX has ascended to a position where only fairly serious collectors need apply. Well, them and any of the fantasists that work at PH – or anyone who makes the mistake of asking them where they’d put their Monopoly money.