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You want a rear-engine, super sports car for less than $200,000. But all your buddies at the club have Porsche Turbos, so you want something different.<\/p>\n
Not\u00a0Lamborghini Huracan<\/a>\u00a0different. You\u2019re a modest Midwest dude after all \u2014 not a leather pants-wearing, lemon tart-dating, valet-park-my-supercar-in-front-of-the-Townsend celebrity. But still a car that\u2019s wicked quick so you can take it to local track days. Mid-Ohio, Waterford, Gingerman. But you don\u2019t want a stiff\u00a0McLaren 570S<\/a>\u00a0with a carbon-fiber tub that\u2019ll destroy tracks and then destroy your backside on the trip home.<\/p>\n Oh, and it would be nice if it were manufactured in the Midwest. Let me introduce you to the 2017 Acura NSX.<\/p>\n Four years in the making,\u00a0the only made-in-America mid-engine supercar<\/a>\u00a0will roll out of Marysville\u2019s Performance Manufacturing Center this fall. That\u2019s Marysville, Ohio. Californians love their Silicon Valley-made Teslas. The Corvette Z06 (which will annihilate every mid-engine sports car in existence,\u00a0but that\u2019s another column<\/a>) is the pride of Kentucky. Your Acura exotic is made this side of Columbus.<\/p>\n In 1990 Honda\u2019s luxury division wowed the world with the NSX, a Japan-made track carving-knife blessed by Brazilian F1 superstar Ayrton Senna. For more than a decade it went toe-to-toe with European cutlery for a fraction of the price. Then it disappeared.<\/p>\n A generation later and the Acura NSX is reborn. It might have been endorsed by Senna again had he not died tragically in 1994. But now that the NSX is made in the Buckeye State it seems appropriate that Ohio-born IndyCar superstar Graham Rahal is its godfather (along with IndyCar mate Dario Franchitti).<\/p>\n Riding shotgun with Rahal at California\u2019s Thermal Speedway, I got a front row seat to the screaming sequel.<\/p>\n Since NSX went away, the alphanumeric X badge has become shorthand for \u201ccrossover\u201d in an American market obsessed with the things. Lincoln MKX, Cadillac SRX, Volvo XC90, BMW X1, X3, X5. Acura has its own popular RDX and MDX.<\/p>\n But NSX is no SUV. It\u2019s back to broaden Acura\u2019s appeal beyond crossovers \u2014 putting sizzle back in a lackluster brand. NS-XXX would be more appropriate.<\/p>\n Like its forbear, the NSX (short for New Sportscar Xperimental) takes the hybrid technology of 21st-century, million-dollar, sci-fi cyborgs like the Porsche 918 and Ferrari LaFerrari and stuffs it into a sub-$200,000 wrapping. If that lofty price still makes your eyes water (adjusted for inflation, a 1990 NSX would cost just $108,000), I understand.<\/p>\n But if a $45K Acura MDX is a bargain next to a $57K BMW X5, so is NSX a blue-light special next to a 918. Twin-turbo V-6. Lithium-ion battery. 573 combined horsepower. Aluminum-intensive chassis, plastic-composite skin, leather-and-Alcantara interior. That value proposition is key to Acura\u2019s bold assertion that it can compete with the best athletes on the planet.<\/p>\n The $150K-$200K supercar segment has become a boiling piranha tank of competition. Lamborghini and McLaren, searching for more volume, have joined 911 and Audi R8 (and Nissan\u2019s GTR Nismo and Aston Martin Vantage if we\u2019re counting front-engine machines).<\/p>\n A $160K Acura? It starts to make sense.<\/p>\n You won\u2019t emerge from the NSX through McLaren-like scissor doors, but it\u2019s a handsome piece of art. For all its technical skills, Gen One was flawed with a rhino-sized booty. Gen Two is perfectly proportioned with the rear wheels pushed to the corners, arched greenhouse, and a short front porch for good visibility. Add 12 \u201cJewel Eye\u201d headlamps and it\u2019s a future classic.<\/p>\n Credit a compact, low-center-of-gravity driveline packaging a 75-degree V-6 with twin turbos, three electric motors (two-forward, one aft), and a 1 kWh battery laid like a slice of cheese between meaty engine and firewall.<\/p>\n Its buff proportions set, designer Michelle Christensen cut openings to feed the furnace within. Ten heat exchangers cool everything from electric motors to turbo intercoolers \u2014 so NSX gets massive side air scoops, hood fender vents and front chin intakes. At full thrust this rocket needs downforce lest it take flight \u2014 so more holes are punched in back to extract air and vacuum NSX to the pavement.<\/p>\n After a few laps with Rahal, I climbed in a sister NSX to follow his lead.<\/p>\n Nail the accelerator and the supercar takes off like a locomotive. Hybrid it may be, but NSX is no tree hugger (let me show you the BMW i8<\/a>\u00a0on our menu, sir). That lithium-ion battery is committed to raw speed alone. With electric-assisted turbos, NSX delivers its 406 pound-feet-of-torque. Right. Now. The nine-speed, dual-clutch tranny barks off milli-second upshifts like a drill sergeant.\u00a0Short of a Tesla P90D<\/a>, it\u2019s the most instant acceleration you\u2019ll find. Well, shy of a $900,000 Porsche 918, anyway.<\/p>\n Starting to sound like a bargain?<\/p>\n Throw the NSX into Thermal\u2019s 180-degree Turn One, and … well. You don\u2019t throw the all-wheel-drive, 3,803-pound supercar into sharp corners. It\u2019ll push like an ox cart. If you want to fling your supercar round a tight track, buy the rear-wheel-drive, carbon-tub McLaren. The NSX rewards big sweepers \u2014 or even better, open roads \u2014 where its AWD grips like ivy and the wail of the V-6 engulfs the cabin via two portholes in the firewall.<\/p>\n It\u2019s an interior as efficient as the NSX\u2019s exterior.<\/p>\n This isn\u2019t a 911 with 500 button functions. The Acura\u2019s four drive modes \u2014 QUIET, SPORT, SPORT PLUS, TRACK \u2014 are accessed through a single knob at the top of Acura\u2019s familiar, button-shift sleeve. Launch control is a cinch: 1) TRACK mode 2) floor brake and accelerator pedal simultaneously 3) release brake. OMG.<\/p>\n A digital instrument display gives the pilot everything he needs behind the steering wheel. And what a wheel. Sculpted for your hands so they don\u2019t need leave the 9 and 3 o\u2019clock positions, it\u2019s squared off on bottom and top (for better visibility).<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the signatures of this car,\u201d grins Rahal.<\/p>\n