Here’s Why the Original Acura NSX Is Shooting Up in Value

this is a 1994 acura nsx actually it's a honda nsx which is what these were called outside north america more on that in a few minutes but either way it's an nsx and a really really nice one these have become tremendously desirable and tremendously valuable in recent years and today i'm going to review this pristine early nsx and discuss why they've been shooting up in value so much [Music] before i get started a very important announcement this nsx is currently for sale live right now on cars and bids which is my new enthusiast car auction website for cool modern cars like this one this nsx has a live auction going right now you can click the link in the description below to go bid on it and buy this fantastic example of an early nsx as you will see in this video so watch the video check out the nsx and then head over to cars and bids where you can actually bid on this car being auctioned right now now this car is an icon the nsx came out back in 1990 and it was undoubtedly the most impressive of all of the popular japanese sports cars that were sold during the 90s the supra the rx7 the 3000 gt they were all cool but the nsx was a cut above mainly because it was a mid engine exotic sports car intended to rival ferrari the thinking was this would provide the same driving experience performance excitement and thrills as a ferrari but with the drivability and usability and reliability of a honda and the nsx certainly succeeded at that back at the time in the early 1990s the nsx sold okay but it was certainly seen as a less ferrari ferrari it never drew anywhere near as much as attention as the ferrari 348 which was the new model at the time but as the years have gone on the 348 has stayed relatively cheap and it's the nsx whose values have skyrocketed people love the analog driving experience the performance and the reliability just as honda initially intended and people love a lot more about that than the nsx too and today i'm going to review this nsx and show you all of the quirks and features of an ultra low mile tremendously well-preserved honda nsx that's been imported from japan then i'm going to get it out on the road and drive it and then i'll give it a dug score all right i'm going to start the quirks and features of the nsx up here with the badge and specifically the honda badge which may look a little out of place to some north american viewers who know this car as the acura nsx acura is honda's luxury brand and it was only offered in north america and the thought was that if honda was going to come out with a flagship expensive ferrari rivaling sports car it should be branded as an acura it would give the ven new acura luxury brand a flagship model at the top of the range you walked into an acura dealer you saw a ferrari rivaling sports car you were impressed and so maybe you bought a legend or an acura vigor which were the new cars at the time so acura nsx in the states honda nsx everywhere else this car came from japan and that's where it was called the honda and speaking of this car's name let's talk about n nsx now over the years honda has developed a reputation for being a premier builder of performance in sports cars the nsx the s2000 all the type r models they're known for it now but they weren't back in 1990 back then they were mainly focused on building city commuter vehicles they were a very cautious company that didn't make sports cars like this so nsx stood for new sports car experimental because at the time it was a big experiment for honda making a mid-engine ferrari rivaling car when they were mainly known for the civic and the accord especially here in the states now there are a lot of great stories from the nsx development which has become something of a legend as this car's status has grown but my personal favorite story comes from very early on honda was experimenting with different powertrains and putting them in different places in its vehicles to create new types of cars as automakers do one experiment they made was putting a mid engine in the honda city which was an ultra tiny sub-compact car they didn't sell here in the states that never actually got to production but apparently honda employees loved driving around this mid-engine honda city in the employee parking lot and they loved it so much that they started to convince their bosses hey what about a mid-engine car it's so much fun how about a sports car that was in 1984 development for the nsx began soon after that this is the result and it was born from a mid-engine frankenstein development mule being driven around the honda employee parking lot in japan anyway next up i'm going to start opening up the nsx but before i do that i want to talk about the paint which is beautiful it's not just white a lot of early nsx's were white this is instead kind of a pearl white honda called it neutron white pearl and it is tremendously rare only a handful of nsx's were ever made for the entire world in this color and this is one of them a very beautiful looking color very striking especially when you see it up close or out in the sun it's really interesting to see and really rare but anyway you go to open the door and the first thing you realize with the key in your hand is it's heavy i can't show you this but take my word for it this is an unusually heavy key very different from the keys that honda's got at the time maybe to emphasize the specialness of this car of course the key also says nsx on it not just your typical honda key the key also came with a remote very simple just lock and unlock and it still works because of course it does this is a honda after all even though it's 25 years old lock unlock buttons still do exactly what they should one thing i really like related to the locks if you look in on the driver's side next to the door lock you can see a piece there marked security and when you lock the door that turns red now the word security actually faces out i guess to deter would-be thieves and the red light shows them this car is secure don't attempt to break in here interestingly this doesn't appear over on the passenger side so if they were going to break in they chose the passenger side they wouldn't know that this car has security and next up we open up the driver door which is of course over on the right side of the car since this was sold new in japan which is a right-hand drive market before i climb inside though i want to open up the other stuff in this car and that means starting with the front trunk now to do that there's a little latch you pull in the driver's foot while you pull this and it pops open then you go into the front you open it up and you can see this isn't actually a trunk at all there's no storage in here you have a temporary spare tire and a few mechanical components but there's nowhere for you to put anything this is the typical trunk location in a mid-engine car but not so in the nsx you don't have any storage up here at all so if you were expecting a trunk you won't get it one thing i like in this front trunk area on the underside of the opening panel stamped into the panel itself you have an arrow pointing to where you should put your front prop when you prop it open that's kind of cool you could have gone with a sticker or something simpler than that but instead you have a printed stamped arrow on the other side no arrow at all because there's no prop over there of course just one for where you put the prop it's nice and clever a cool little detail but you're probably wondering at this point well then okay where's the trunk so you go into the driver's door jam and you can see this latch which you can pull in back and surely that one opens the trunk well what that does is it unlatches the rear window you open up the rear window and then you open up this fuzzy piece under the rear window and then well there's your engine you prop the fuzzy piece open and the engine is sitting right there staring at you now this is a v6 like i mentioned before in the early nsx models like this one it was a three liter v6 with about 250 horsepower that was later increased to 3.2 liters and like 270 to 90 horses but in this car only a v6 only 250 horsepower which caused problems for the nsx because ferrari had v8s and v12s lamborghinis had bigger engines this thing only had a v6 and it just seemed kind of wimpy at the time but as the years have gone on and supercars now have 500 600 800 a thousand horsepower this car's relatively small engine has become seen as something of a benefit enthusiasts of cars from this era are looking for more of an analog balanced experience rather than pure all-out power like you get now and this car with its reliable honda v6 250 horsepower it provided that balance that a lot of people look for and so this engine which was probably this car's biggest drawback at the time compared to more exotic rivals is now seen as something of an asset but you're probably still thinking where's the cargo you've seen the front you've seen the back there's no storage in this car how could it have been a more practical ferrari if it had no storage well you have another button in this interior this one on the door panel you can see there's an image of a generic car with the trunk open probably used in all the hondas you press that and it pops open a third compartment this one in the far back you open this up and you can see this is the trunk and this is surprisingly roomy in fact unusually so for an exotic mid engine sports car you typically wouldn't find such a large trunk but you have it in here the interesting thing overall though here is you have three different pieces that open in the middle of the car the front non-trunk the engine compartment and the trunk itself it's kind of a miracle of packaging that they got all of those things to open in individual compartments and the car was still a reasonable size but they did and it's neat to see everything open front middle and rear not a view you get too often and not something that basically any other car can do now interestingly one thing that doesn't open in this car is the roof a lot of people know the nsx as a convertible or at least as a targa model where you could remove the roof panels but that actually came later the earliest nsx models 1990 to about 95.96 they only had a coupe body style like this with no removable roof so even though a lot of other stuff opens in this car the roof doesn't it's fixed in place also speaking of opening things i want to talk door for a second specifically the door handles which are just cool instead of sticking them on the body work they're integrated into this little black panel sort of hidden from view they look kind of cool and they're arranged vertically so you just pull on the door handle and the door opens up not all that crazy but it is nice to see they didn't interrupt the body lines of the car for the door handle and instead they stuck it somewhere where it wouldn't get in the way by the way one other important exterior item before i climb inside the wheels these are the original nsx wheels they are 15 inch wheels very rare you see in nsx on its original wheels most people got bigger ones that they thought look cooler but i always loved the look of the original nsx wheels i think it complements the car pretty well and it very much speaks to this era before wheel sizes started to escalate like crazy that an exotic sports car could have ever had a 15-inch wheel it's mind-blowing but it's true anyway next up we move inside the new nsx and as you might expect there is a lot to cover in here when you first open the door there's a plaque on the door cell that tells you your nsx was manufactured by honda and gives your serial number which is pretty cool to see now when you get in here you will notice a fairly distinctive design in this interior the goal was to make it look like a fighter jet now a lot of cars say that's their goal now but back in 1990 it was not a common one this car was kind of a trailblazer in terms of automotive interior designs and creating a cockpit look and feel they did this by putting the most important controls in this interior right at your fingertips which they accomplished in kind of an unusual way behind the steering wheel you have your regular stocks for your turn signals over on the right and for your windshield wipers over on the left but behind that you have additional stocks there are actually four separate stocks coming off the steering wheel where in most cars there's only one or two now over on the right the rear stock would turn on or off your cruise control and then behind that you could turn on or off your headlights over on the left you could turn on or off your window defogger and behind that you had the hazard light control which is probably the most over designed excessive hazard light i have ever seen but that's how you put on your hazard lights in the original nsx so all of these controls were right at your fingers you also had buttons for the horn now throughout the 1990s that became very commonplace in a lot of vehicles but the nsx was one of the earliest adopters again to make sure everything was right at your fingertips without you having to move your hands all around the interior to reach your common controls it was intended to be like a cockpit and again within that theme in order to make the interior feel small and cockpit-like they had to mount the climate control vents on the door and so they've done that over on the driver door you can see that's where the climate vents are same deal over on the passenger door it allowed them to make the interior a little smaller because they didn't have to stick those vents on the dashboard they could integrate them into the door it was very much a cockpit feel in here just like they intended but anyway next up let's talk about some of the other interesting controls in here starting in the center console where you have four buttons upper left is the button to turn on the fog lights nothing weird there the bottom buttons are in fact blanks surprising to see a blank switch and a purpose-built vehicle like this but they are blanks they don't have any purpose they do nothing the strangest button in this area though is the one at the upper right marked half with this little drawing above it that was for the antenna so you turn on the radio in this car and like a lot of 90s cars the antenna would automatically rise up to get you better radio reception unless of course you pressed half if you did that the antenna would only rise up halfway for some reason you wouldn't get as good reception but i guess that was aesthetic because it didn't look all that good when it was all the way up and it looked better when it was halfway up so this button occupying this important spot at the middle of your interior controls the height limit for the antenna kind of funny and it's weird to see a button like that at all but this car has it now speaking of this center console area in the back of the center console you open up this lid where you discover the worst cupholders ever not only are they too small and too flimsy but they're under a lid so if you put a drink there the lid falls back on it and it spills absolutely ridiculous to even have cup holders they're definitely an afterthought but they're there in case you wanted somewhere to put your drinks in an emergency it would have made more sense to put the cup holders in the middle of this center console but that space was already taken up by the highly important blank switches and the button that allowed you to raise your antenna halfway up you wouldn't want to mess with that stuff and by the way in between the cup holder lid and those buttons you have this piece in the center marked nsx d-o-h-c v-tech just to remind you what you're driving if you flip this up you will find a very tiny storage compartment in here velvet line so you can put very tiny fragile items in here so there wasn't really much in terms of center storage in this car but you did get a big glove box open this up you can see a lot of storage in here again the goal was to make a more practical more usable car compared to a lot of exotic sports cars at the time many of them didn't have any glove box at all but the nsx did a lot of storage between the glove box and that big trunk in back next up moving on to the center control stack which you can see has this kind of distinctive look because it's angled back away from the driver and passenger on the bottom you have the radio nothing too weird there except your presets you have four along the top part above the radio screen and then you have four more along the bottom part below the screen so they're split up which is kind of an unusual thing now above that you have your climate controls which are a little bit more unusual for one thing the button for airflow recirculating or outside air you can see the car in that button looks like an nsx not a perfect nsx a little bit of a bloated one but it's better than a stupid button with a generic car on it they tried to make it more exciting and more enticing the weird thing about the climate controls though is that you can't operate them manually this car has automatic climate control so you set a temperature and then it blows air until the interior is that temperature in most cars you can override that and just have it blow cold or hot air but not in the nsx automatic climate control was the only way you could use this so you would turn it on and you set a temperature and then air blew out you couldn't choose just to have permanent cold or hot air blowing on you this must have been a pretty early automatic climate control system where they thought people would want to set a temperature and leave it at that later cars had manual controls in addition to automatic in case you wanted to manually control the air now the last interesting thing worth discussing with this car before i go drive it is the headlight situation which is unusual this car came from the pop-up headlight era the late 80s early 90s and so it has pop-up headlights and you can see when you flip this little stalk coming off the steering column and back you turn on the headlights and then they pop up and the headlights turn on which operates exactly like you'd expect but the especially interesting thing with the headlights happens when you go to flash the high beams just like in most cars you pull the turn signal stock to flash the high beams but in most cars with pop-up headlights there's like a second set of headlights that flash for the high beams so that the pop-ups don't have to pop up since you're just doing it for a short little flash or two but in the nsx the pop-ups pop up you pull the signal stock the pop-ups shoot up and then they flash the high beams as many times as you want then you're done flashing the high beams you're wondering what happens to the pop-ups well they stay popped up for a little bit but then they go right back down automatically since you were just flashing and you don't need them anymore it's an interesting way to do that and so those are the quirks and features of the original acura nsx or in this case the original honda nsx now it's time to get it out on the road and see how it drives all right driving the nsx now i have filmed a video with like a later nsx first generation but like a 2002 or three or four model this is the early one i've never shot a video with an earlier nsx model and i have always wanted to i was waiting for a really really nice example and this is that this is probably the nicest early nsx that i have been around since then back in the early 90s truly fantastic beautiful color and it's a 94 so it's not affected by the snap ring transmission problem that a lot of these had but the best part is really the way it drives and that's something you can't take away from the nsx no matter how many miles it has this car is just so thrilling and so exciting to drive there are several reasons for that one is just the sheer analogness of it there is no screen in here no touch screen no driver aids no stupid tech you don't need everything is focused on driving the car but it's more than just the fact that it's analog it's also the way that they built this car a lot of crappy cars were analog too but here's one that was unbelievably well done one of the greatest clutch and shifter actions of any car i have ever driven at any point it feels so nice to shift gears in this car the shifter is so tight the clutch is so smooth i wish oh that all manual cars felt like this and then there's the balance of this car like i mentioned during the quirks and features 250 horsepower seemed like a small number back in the day but over time this car has started to seem pretty special like wow this is interesting 250 horsepower didn't seem like a lot then but now that we can have all the horsepower in the world maybe it makes more sense to find a car that emphasizes balance rather than all-out speed the reliability is also a factor i think in this car's you know performance in terms of the market over the years it's increases in value from this era a lot of ferraris lamborghinis cars like that they were not that nice they weren't well built they looked amazing cooler than this for sure but they just kind of sucked and one big benefit here is this car is known to be like bulletproof stone reliable and great to drive and analog and it's just ah there's nothing like an early nsx there really isn't just the way it feels oh it revs so quick so you can do a quick downshift great visibility all around because there's just glass everywhere no airbags or side impact protection at all really oh shifting into gear slotting it into the next gear just so satisfying truly one of the very best manuals that has ever existed i mean it is a wondrous thing to operate everything about this car is wondrous the balance the feel of it going around corners not only is the steering really fantastic and tremendously precise and i have to admit i've driven some older nsx models where with weir it doesn't feel as precise as it did back in the day but this one really does but the really big benefit is the handling prowess of this car just unbelievably balanced when you go around corners the mid engine the weight distribution the fact that it's not all that heavy of a car to begin with i can't say enough great things about the driving characteristic of this car this one only a little bit weirder than all the other nsx's i've driven because it's right hand drive but i do think the honda factor here is kind of cool you have like the real nsx as it was intended as a honda for its original market not that that really mattered this was a great car no matter how you got it and this is a wonderful one and so that's the original nsx as a kid i didn't get this car why would someone pay ferrari money for a honda with a v6 when they could have a ferrari it didn't make sense to 10 year old doug but as time has gone on i have appreciated this car more and more my fondness for it has grown just like everyone else's and frankly i think the nsx deserves its huge rise in value it's just such an amazing car and now it's time to give this nsx a doug score starting with the weekend categories and styling the nsx is an attractive car always has been not insanely beautiful but very nice and it gets a 7 out of 10. acceleration does 0 to 60 in the high 5 second range and it gets a 4 out of 10. handling is sharp very sharp for a car from this era and it gets an 8 out of 10. fun factor is also huge these are so thrilling so enjoyable to drive so amazingly exciting and it gets an eight out of ten finally cool factor and these are cool but not quite crazy super car cool you see them enough that they earn a respectable but not excessive 7 out of 10 for a total weekend score of 34 out of 50. next up are the daily categories and features the nsx doesn't have much just the basics and it gets a 2 out of 10. comfort is fine normal for a car like this not particularly lavish but hardly uncomfortable and it gets a 4 out of 10. quality is excellent reliability is one of this car's biggest selling points the only real drawback is material quality which is only okay and it gets a 7 out of 10. practicality is fine normal for a car like this and it gets a 2 out of 10. finally value and i think these are great values they're getting more expensive but that only means you won't lose money and even though they're a lot pricier than they once were they're worth it it gets a 7 out of 10 for a total daily score of 22 out of 50. add it up and the doug score is 56 out of 100 which places the nsx here against relevant cars it ties the 2002 nsx i reviewed although it comes to the score a bit differently either way the nsx easily beats out the ferrari 348 which was honda's whole goal in the first place what it doesn't beat is the f-355 which came later in the 90s from ferrari the nsx drives better and it's more practical but honda never could match the 355's look or its sound

Channel: Doug DeMuro

Views: 492,251

Rating: 4.9212813 out of 5

Keywords: acura nsx, nsx review, acura nsx review, nsx, na1 nsx, na1 acura nsx, na1, na1 nsx review, honda nsx, honda nsx review, doug demuro, demuro, doug de muro

Id: Efs-maBiEFw

Length: 25min 13sec (1513 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 03 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/centzon]

When I was in college 2008ish, I remember looking these up on auto trader for high 20s to mid 30s.

[u/AudiQuattroZoomZoom]

There is a reason why Gordon Murray used the NSX as a benchmark for the F1. It is, if you think about it, a poor mans F1. Its an analog manual mid engine sports car that tries its best to be daily drivable. Its not crazily styled, its more subtle styling that ages very well.

[u/Kie1522]

All I hear is that my dream car is skyrocketing away from me :(

[u/MentalMiilk]

Minor thing, but he missed the fact that the center console also opens up to the side, giving a bit more storage than shown. His comments on reliability are spot on though— I have a '93 with over 260k on it and it's showing no signs of slowing down.

EDIT: Fun fact #2: JDM NSX's have shorter gear ratios than USIM NSX's for gears 2 through 4.

[u/Uptons_BJs]

Here's my theory on how cars shoot up in value: the final version of Cars with no follow-up shoot up in value.

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Cars, like most things improve year over year due to technological advances. Old TVs don't shoot up in value, since every year TV companies release a better TV. Similarly, most older cars don't shoot up in value, as with every successive generation, the company releases a better version of it.

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However, cars that have a certain uniqueness in character that don't receive a replacement are different. You cannot go to the dealer and drive a better one off the lot.

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For instance, 60s muscle cars are worth a lot, since their immediate successors were crap. First generation mustangs are worth a lot, since they are iconic and they were replaced with the Mustang II. First generation Challengers are worth a lot, since the second generation was a FWD 4 cylinder Mitsubishi.

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The original NSX is shooting up in value, since there wasn't a followup for many years, and the new NSX is extremely expensive and completely different in character. If you liked the manual mid-engined Acura with a screaming v6, you simply couldn't go the Acura dealer and get a new, better one.

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In comparison, the C4 Corvette will never shoot up in value, since well, they got replaced by the C5, C6, and C7. For years and years after, you simple could have went to the Chevy dealer and gotten a better corvette.

[u/EClarkee]

My uncle has one and I always tell him I’ll buy it off him. Unfortunately he knows it’s value and won’t give me a family discount lol

[u/tobiascuypers]

"moved the door handle to the pillar to not interrupt the body lines"

BIG KEY HOLE STICKING RIGHT THERE. Lmao

[u/nothingaboutme]

I like how he says, "we move inside the new NSX" at 12:11

[u/1amathrowaway]

It sounds like this car is one of those "bigger than the sum of its parts".

The overall score ended up being solid, but it sounded like you were much happier with the car as a total package during the driving portion.