Owning Ayrton Senna's Honda NSX
12/20/2013
The dream of owning Ayrton Senna's Honda NSX could come true for a solvent buyer. A red Honda NSX from 1991, which Ayrton Senna used during his stays in Portugal, is currently being offered on eBay.
According to the advertisement, the car, which is located in England, has around 50,000 km on the clock and is said to be in good condition. At first glance, however, the asking price of £110,000 sounds somewhat ambitious, as "normal" NSXs are normally priced at around 30,000 to 50,000 euros, not 130,000 euros.
But this is not just any racing driver's sports car. After all, he was Formula 1 World Champion in 1990 and 1991 with Honda power and he also made significant contributions to the development of the Honda NSX. He is said to have been jointly responsible for tuning the chassis (including on the Nordschleife).
Senna owned/used two other Honda NSXs, one of which was painted black to his own personal specifications and which he drove in Brazil. The red car now for sale can even be seen in the movie "Racing is in my blood", with spinning wheels and a grinning Senna at the wheel.
The Honda NSX was Honda's first (and so far only) super sports car and in the early nineties it was able to keep up well with the Ferrari, Maserati and Porsche available at the time, despite having "only" six cylinders.
The engine developed its maximum output of 274 hp at 7,100 rpm, and the torsionally rigid body was largely made of aluminum. The only thing people sometimes criticized was the design, the somewhat "normal" interior and the clear focus on comfort in the equipment. On the other hand, the Honda offered super sports car pleasures at (almost) Honda Civic maintenance costs.
If you consider all this and remember Steve McQueen's Porsche, which fetched around six to ten times the value of another 911 at auction, then the £ 110,000 for the Senna NSX almost sounds like a bargain ...
