There are a lot of things people can, and do, say about the current Acura NSX. It’s “not as cool as the old one,” you’ll hear, or the front end “looks like it came off of a generic coupe.” From the outside, it might seem like Acura’s milking an old nameplate for $160,000 a pop, minus big rebates to entice more sales, just because it can. Who wouldn’t, after all?
But after eight minutes in the 573-horsepower, twin-turbocharged V6 hybrid NSX—a strawberry-red example from the 2019 model year with a carbon-fiber spoiler and a $10,600 upgrade to carbon-ceramic rotors—I have none of those thoughts. In fact, I could only make a few variations of the same sentence.
(Full disclosure: Acura tossed Jalopnik an NSX to take out for a track day at Monticello Motor Club, and that Jalopnik did. It was fun.)
“How was it?” a coworker asked as I brought the NSX back in from my few laps on track at Monticello Motor Club, where about half of the Jalopnik staffspent the day last week. I was so absorbed in how much fun those laps were that I’d almost forgotten about the severe food poisoning I’d had all day