Acura's superb new front-engined super-coupe concept, revelaed at the Detroit motor show on Sunday (7 January 2007) will definitely go into production. It is already being freely described by its creators as a replacement for the long-lived Honda NSX, despite the fact that it has a completely different mechanical format and lacks a proper production name (at present it's just called Advanced Sports Car Concept).
Confusingly for Europeans, it carries the badge of Acura, Honda's upmarket US brand, because it was conceived by American designers at Acura's Californian design studio. Honda is well aware that to succeed, the car will need solid support from US buyers.
The car's two designers, Patrick Lukasak and Bull Gex, spent a little less than a year on the project, which will now be developed further in Japan for showing as an advanced prototype in Tokyo next September, complete with a Japanese-designed interior. The car is 4.62m long, sits on a 2.74m wheelbase, is powered by a front mid-mounted V10 engine and has an advanced, electronically controlled four-wheel-drive system with a rearwards torque bias to aid handling adjustability. The wheels, milled from solid aluminium alloy billets, are 19-inch at the front and 20-inch behind.
Few other details are known: Honda people won't reveal the engine capacity (3.0 litres looks a strong possibility, given the obvious F1 connotations) or even whether the Acura ASCC is to be a two-plus-two or a pure two-seater. Quick inspection of the car's all-glass cabin - which doesn't have a finished interior – shows that either option is possible. All will be revealed in eight months' time.
Steve Cropley
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