Unicorn-grade Honda NSX Type R for sale

Say what you will about the hybrid Honda NSX, but there’s no denying that it moved the supercar game on. When the NC1 NSX arrived in 2016, the only hybrid performance cars in existence were the LaFerrari/ McLaren P1/ Porsche 918 holy trinity, all of which had been snapped up long before the public laid eyes on them. Ultimately, the NSX was never going to trouble those three, yet it did pack a 573hp twin-turbo V6 with assistance from three(!) electric motors and could hit 62mph from a standstill in around 3 seconds, which isn’t far off the aforementioned hypercar trio. And while one of those would have set you back around a million quid, the NC1 could be had for just £138,000.

Of course, electrification is never going to stir the soul like a naturally aspirated V6 matched to a simple, lightweight chassis – and that’s probably why it wound up being a bit of a flop. But can you imagine how good a Type R version would have been? We never got the limited-run Type S, which hiked the powertrain up to 610hp and looked more the part. Had a Type R followed in a similar vein to the NA Type R we have for sale here, it might’ve given the NC1 some much-needed street cred.

That being said, it would’ve been an almighty undertaking to come up with a Type R successor. Heck, it can’t have been easy trying to improve upon the original NSX in the first place. Honda’s first supercar may have lacked the headline numbers of the Ferrari 348, but its ingenious aluminium monocoque design (a world first in a production car) and bespoke 3.0-litre V6 were made for each other, and it only got better when Honda upped the capacity to 3.2 litres a few years down the road. 

However, that would be the only power bump the NA would receive over its 15-year production run. Instead, Honda focused on marginal gains to unlock performance, which it did to great effect for the Type R. Launched in 1992, just a couple of years on from the standard car, the Type R (or NSX-R as it would later come to be known) was a considerably lighter offering, with carbon-kevlar backed Recaro bucket seats and forged Enkei wheels bringing the biggest savings. Overall, Honda’s crack squad of engineers saved around 120kg over the NSX, which is hugely impressive given how minimal they are, bringing the R’s kerbweight down to 1,230kg.

While it doesn’t look all that different to a standard NSX from the outside – especially on the NA1 version – the chassis was given a thorough going over, with firmer springs, bars and new bushes. Tweaks were also made to the six-speed manual gearbox, with an increased final drive to keep you close to the 8,000rpm redline. “The NSX-R does feel very firm and unyielding”, wrote Dan Prosser in his PH Heroes piece, but that just made it “a tactile pleasure to drive even at a canter, and then challenging to pedal along any quicker than that.”

An exceptionally rare sight in the UK, given that all 483 first-generation Type Rs were build for the JDM, this 1995 example is a one-owner car from new with a full Japanese Honda service history and just 24,000 miles on the clock. As you know, NSXs aren’t cheap cars these days, and the Japan-only specials command serious money, so it’s little wonder the seller’s asking for £299,995. If that wasn’t enough, it’s eligible for US import given it’s 30 years old, so if you don’t buy it, there’s a good chance someone in the States will…