It is no exaggeration to say the original Acura NSX was one of the most important, gamechanging vehicles of the past 2 decades. And since it slinked into dormancy in 2005, gearheads worldwide have hungrily anticipated a rebirth. Well, the time has come — it is time to celebrate. Today Acura officially unveiled its NSX Concept at the NAIAS auto show in Detroit to much fanfare. When the original NSX hit the market, the world couldn’t believe Honda had delivered such a high level performance vehicle; the car was so well assembled and engineered, it was (allegedly) taken apart piece by piece Ferrari, analyzed and copied, and used as the base for the Prancing Stallion to improve many of their longstanding glitches. Hall of Fame designer/CEO/Engineer/Entrepreneur Jon DeLorean famously said of the NSX (which was his car of choice late in life) that if it had a Ferrari symbol on it it would’ve cost twice as much. Long story short the new iteration of NSX has a lot to live up to, but the crew at Acura promise it will make its predecessor proud. The concept NSX will indeed go into production in Ohio, and will hit showrooms in 2015 powered by a direct-injection VTEC V-6 engine that is mid-mounted just like the original. The car will use Acura’s SH-AWD (Super Handling All Wheel Drive) hybrid drive system which is augmented with 3 electric motors — one to help power rear wheels, one on each front axle to help power the NSX through corners by either adding power or taking it away independently at each wheel. All said, this should supply the all new NSX with V8-like performance while boasting 4 cylinder efficiency. No performance figures have been announced, but considering the lightweight materials used for its platform and the potency of the SH-AWD technology, expect big, big things from Honda.

Lightweight? Mid-engined? V6? The NSX returns in full glory

via Autoblog