Honda Acura NSX GT race car, expects a 2017 launch

Kuala Lumpur: Good news comes rolling for Honda Acura fans, as the high-performance division of Japanese car maker is all primed to gather a race team for Acura NSX. According to Steve Eriksen, the VP and COO of Honda Performance Development (HPD), the company is evaluating the GT3 or GTE platform for its race car, with a launch planned for 2017.

Steve Eriksen reported that NSX could be a replacement to the all-wheel drive Acura TLX-GT race car, which is currently in its second year of the Pirelli World Challenge (PWC). The company is planning to take the GT3 route because PWC is moving to FIA GT3 homologation with rear-wheel drive characteristics, although re-engineering the TLX-GT into a GT3 spec machine would not make much sense.

According to Steve, disconnecting the front-wheel drive will make the car less competitive and plunge its image as a good racecar. One more complexity as per Eriksen will be, If Honda decides to go ahead with having the NSX in the GT3 class, then the race car will not have the road car’s hybrid system and the series in its current state is not ready for the complex hybrid system.

“We certainly raced hybrids before in Japan. The CR-Z raced as a hybrid, the Super GTs have been outfitted as hybrids at times. We know what to do but it doesn’t seem like the other manufacturers are ready for that yet,” he said. Steve Eriksen believes that a race team tweaks their cars as per the regulations, even if it does not fulfilling company’s marketing objectives. He said, “Just like Audi can’t run their Quattro, you have to run what the rules dictate you run, even though it may not suit your marketing as well as you’d like.”

According to the report, it is not yet confirmed that California-based HPD will be looking after the race NSX. Also, some rumours suggest that Euro-based Jas Motorsport being a long-time Honda partner and the team behind World Touring Car Championship for Honda might be the Japanese Automaker's take.called in to lend a hand. Well, maybe its not as per the Honda Performance Development (HPD) but Eriksen is adamant to his point that NSX should be featured in a racing series in the USA, because the USA is the biggest incubator of supercars.