1991 Honda NSX

With chassis number 148, this is a very early NSX with a manual gearbox, fixed roof and unassisted steering. In other words, exactly as Ayrton Senna, Gordon Murray and LJKS would have chosen.

The vendor is only the fourth owner and carefully garages it in a Cair-O-Port ventilated car storage system when he isn’t driving it. Originally bought to be kept and enjoyed in the long-term, a change in circumstances now forces this reluctant sale.

The roof of the vehicle and the front bumper suffered from some minor stone chips and so the third owner had them professionally resprayed to a high standard. There is a small area of scuffing on the n/s sill where a bungee from a car cover chaffed but other than these minor points, the car is in very good condition and is ready to be showed and enjoyed on the new owner’s favourite roads.

The alloy wheels have been properly refurbished at a cost of £500, and then shod with four brand new Yokohama AD08R Advan Neova tyres.

The black leather interior is in very good condition with no rips, tears or other damage. Everything inside works exactly as it should and there are no extraneous holes or switches to spoil the look of this wonderfully period luxury interior.

The NSX’s climate control unit for the air-conditioning system is notoriously fragile and so this one was rebuilt by the UK’s foremost NSX specialist, who also stripped down and fully refurbished a NSX-specific UK-market Bose head unit at the same time. 

The door speakers do need attention: the vendor had planned to import three new speaker/amplifier units from Bose in the ‘States for around £500 (amazingly, genuine equipment units are still available brand new and off the shelf) to return the car to stock. However, as many owners choose improved sound quality over originality he has paused that work in case the new owner wants to go down that route instead. Either way, £500 and half-a-day would see the sound system completely sorted.

Similarly, the air-conditioning system needs recharging. It is currently running R12, which is still available, albeit at a cost of about £100 a refill. However, again, some owners prefer to bite the bullet and convert the system to the more modern R134a refrigerant, which is a straightforward job and detailed in the NSX Club of Britain owners’ forum.

The driver’s seat comes with an extra aftermarket black leather base cushion. This is thinner than the original and can be fitted in seconds without any tools if more headroom is needed for track use with a helmet or if the driver is especially tall.

Finally, the car comes with the rare (and very expensive) so-called ‘titanium’ key plus two normal keys and three remote alarm key fobs.

The current owner’s first job was to get the NSX fully serviced and inspected by his local old-school garage. The service went well, with all the fluids changed including new engine oil, gearbox oil, brake and clutch fluid, and fresh coolant, plus four new spark plugs and a timing belt. 

The rusty exhaust flexi section was also replaced at the same time and the coilover suspension binned and the suspension returned to OE springs and dampers, using components from a low-mileage NSX. The dampers were found to be leaking after they’d been fitted, so they were then removed and brand new Bilsteins - imported from the USA at a cost of around £600 - fitted. 

The suspension geometry was set up by Center Gravity in Warwickshire, probably the country’s foremost suspension and handling experts. As a result, the NSX handles as sweetly and precisely as the day it left the factory.

The anti-lock braking system on early NSXs is only a two-channel system, which is a bit crude compared to what is available these days so the owner bit the bullet and paid £3,000 to have it stripped out and replaced with the second-generation ABS system that is fitted to the later, fixed headlight, NSX. The components used were brand-new and specially imported and the change is almost undetectable to the eye. 

But don’t be misled; the engineering changes are extensive, and leave the car with four-channel ABS, with each wheel now being individually monitored and braked. This work was, again, carried out by the famous ‘Kaz’, who also replaced the front offside wheel speed sensor, refurbished the fan control unit, replaced the main relay, and cleaned the air-conditioning temperature sensor at the same time. He also fitted an O/E oil filter and replaced the engine oil with Mobil One, the car’s third oil change in as many years.

The first owner bought the car on the 23rd January 1991 from Becketts Honda Centre in Sidcup. Becketts continued to service the car until 1997 and 65,000 miles, at which point it passed on to its next owner.

Owner number two then took the car up to 89,000 miles in the next three years, maintaining the car’s impeccable service history.

The third owner bought the car in 2000, fulfilling a life-long dream. He pampered it and used it only a little, carefully storing it in a garage from 2006. The car was hardly driven from that point, with just 3,259 miles being added to the odometer until it was sold in 2015 with a total of 107,525 miles recorded.

The fourth and current owner has attended to all the little bits and bobs that every old NSXs suffer from, leaving it ready to be enjoyed immediately.

The car comes complete with the original owner’s handbook wallet, owner’s handbook, O/E Yokohama A022 tyre information book, vehicles service record book, owner’s card pack, network location map, HondaCare owner’s guide, miscellaneous hanging guide cards on how to use some of the interior controls, a guide to the onboard diagnostics system including a very rare test tool, a handbook for the alarm, even the tool kit is all there… 

The car even comes with an original Honda NSX brochure and the credit card-sized owner’s card plus a business card from the salesman that originally sold it!

Of course, it also comes with a thick sheaf of paperwork comprising old bills and invoices and is HPI clear.

Autocar recently pitted the original NSX against the brand-new Porsche Cayman GT4 – and the NSX won, with the author writing: “The NSX is a car of such singular vision and execution that its place in our folklore can never have been in doubt. Even now, it feels like it must have been designed and developed in a vacuum – come from an entirely different place from every European mid-engined rival and predecessor, with very different priorities, each of them delivered on spectacularly well. This is a car I could own and drive for ever.”

It should prove to be a good investment too, with the price of UK cars having risen by a staggering amount in the last twelve months, a state of affairs we can’t see changing anytime soon given that anyone buying a new NSX must be looking at the old one with a view to building a two-car dream garage.

The guide price is £40-45,000 to reflect the small amount of work yet to do on the car, but, as ever, the reserve is set at a lower point than this.

The car can be viewed in at our premises in South Oxfordshire, to arrange please contact us or use the 'Contact Seller' button at the top of the listing. 

Feel free to ask any questions in the comments or view our frequently asked questions below.