The 2017 Acura NSX Is as Wild as It Is Beautiful

By Jerry Perez - June 1, 2016

2017 Acura

After waiting for many years, we finally had the opportunity to get up close and personal with the most hotly anticipated supercar of the year, the 2017 Acura NSX.

Quite different than online or on paper, one can’t help but to stare at the NSX in the flesh. Its profile looks like a mere sliver in the distance, reminiscent of a thin, agile, and menacing stealth fighter. The entire design starts to take shape as you walk closer, and its sculpted body highlights the endless hours various NSX prototypes spent in the wind-tunnel. While most supercars in the market feature acquired exterior designs, the 2017 Acura NSX is, in my opinion, the only supercar that looks amazing from the front, back, and sides.

Once inside, the story is quite different. The seats and steering wheel retain the edgy coolness of the exterior, but the center-stack and instruments look like a plain ‘ole Acura, including the joystick-like device to control the infotainment system. According to our pro-racing driver, David Wandless, the NSX is all about form over function — including the minimalist interior.

Once I squeezed my way into the passenger seat while wearing a race helmet, and strapped myself in, all 4.04 miles of the legendary Road America racetrack were available to us and ready to be devoured by the NSX. At the touch of a button, the 3.5-liter turbocharged V-6 engine roared to life, giving us a small sound byte of what was to come.

The pit lane light turned green and the Nouvelle Blue Pearl NSX shot into near-triple digits in no time. Wandless smoothly maneuvered turns one and two before really giving it the beans at the Sargento Cheese straight, where even a couple of cone modifications designed to slow the cars down proved to be useless against the 573 horses that insisted we didn’t do so at all. After hitting 139 mph in a matter of seconds, Wandless smashed the brakes, pitched the car into the apex, and used the NSX’s electric-motor-driven all-wheel drive to rocket out of the turn and continue defying the laws of physics.

The remaining 11 turns were equally as fast and brutal, and proved that while Acura may have taken its sweet time with this one, the new NSX was well worth the wait.

If anyone tells you the 2017 Acura NSX isn’t a “true” supercar, it’s simply because they haven’t had the gumption to push it to its max.