Honda NSX Review 2024

Only you’ll know that, but if you’re reading this you’re at least interested in it. It’s might be a hybrid, but its electrical power isn’t really about environmental performance, and instead delivering greater performance, and agility. The likelihood is you’ll have lusted after the original, or, indeed, have been an owner, and enjoy the eccentricities and engineering behind Japanese cars. 

There’s a good chance you’ll have considered a Nissan GT-R at some point, too, or own one, though, likewise you might well be a serial super and sports car owner and want something a little bit different. 

The Honda NSX is certainly that, and will mark you out as daring and not slavish to the sports and supercar norm. Either that, or you’ve gone into the one of the only two UK Honda dealers set up to sell Honda NSXs (both in London) looking to buy a Jazz and decided that, hell, life’s too short, cashed in a chunk of your pension and ordered one. 

In relation to drivetrain, with the exception of a those all sold £1m+ hypercars, no other manufacturer offers a hybrid supercar presently. BMW i8’s is more of a sports car in comparison, lower powered and far more economically focussed than the Honda NSX. 

That means the Honda NSX is stacked up against conventional super and sports cars, while it’s difficult to ignore the, much cheaper, Nissan GT-R here, too, as it’s another Japanese performance car icon. Of the conventional competition cars like the Audi R8 and Porsche 911 Turbo S are the most obvious rivals, as they’re both four-wheel drive and available for around the same price point as the Honda NSX.   

You’ll not find soft touch buttons or the sort of delightfully tactile materials you’d expect in a car with the Honda NSX’s price tag. Instead it’s switches and controls that would be acceptable in a Civic or Jazz, but they are way too cheap feeling and looking to have any chance of creating a special, appealing interior. The digital numbers on the climate control have no place in any car these days, let alone a supercar.

There’s lots of shine, whether it’s the plastics, or the leather covering the seats, the Honda NSX’s materials as busy and mixed as the design, and the glossy gearshift buttons on the centre console do attract messy fingerprints. The paddle-shifters for the nine-speed automatic transmission feel unforgivably cheap, too, and the clicking action they provide feels more arcade wheel than real supercar. 

For all its visual and tactile ordinariness, being Honda does at least reassure you that the interior will last forever, but we’re not sure longevity factors high on the typical supercar buyer’s list of desires. Indeed, the expectation that a car as dramatic as the Honda NSX should have an interior that wows, and it does so, but for all the wrong reasons. 

There’s a nine-speaker 580 Watt ELS Studio Premium Audio system fitted as standard, it specifically tuned to work in the Honda NSXs interior. It, amusingly, still features a CD player, but it’s not at the expense of modernity, with the centre touchscreen allowing control of your smartphone, be it via Apple’s CarPlay or Android Auto connection. 

You’ll be grateful for that, because the standard sat nav, a system that prior to 2019 you had to pay for, is very old-school in its looks and operation, looking like an aftermarket fitment. There’s Bluetooth connection and USB connection, too while most of the touchscreen’s functions can be accessed via the controls on the steering wheel.

The instruments ahead of you are largely contained within a screen, too, these changing as you switch between the various driving modes. The central 7-inch touchscreen is small by today’s standards and its operation isn’t particularly clever, with plenty of confusing menus to navigate, it not helped by being slow to respond, either. At least the stereo does sound good, but, like the rest of the interior, you’ll have to be a committed Honda NSX buyer/owner to consider it against its rivals.  

It’s a mid-engined supercar, so the expectation is of compromises when it comes to space and practicality, and so it transpires. There’s decent space if you’re under 6ft, but taller drivers might find it a touch cramped behind the wheel, thanks to the relatively upright driving position. 

There’s plenty of shoulder room, but you’re separated by a relatively wide centre console, to which there’s an awful (removable) cupholder sticking out of it into the passenger seat space. It looks exactly like the afterthought it clearly was.  

Oddment storage throughout is very limited, too, there being no door bins, and the centre console area is so heavily contoured you’ll be doing well to find anything that can fit in the spaces within it. There’s a glovebox, but it’s not huge, and while most rivals offer a little bit of space for slim bags or suchlike behind the seats, there’s no such gap here. 

There is a boot, accessed by a large hatchback that also reveals much of the plastic surrounding the engine. The boot volume is 110 litres, which is just a couple of litres shy of the similarly mid-engined Audi R8. 

Unlike the Audi though the Honda NSX’s boot is positioned behind the engine, instead of in the front, and its narrow, high opening makes getting things in tricky. The pronounced hump in the boot floor also makes getting hard carry-on luggage tricky, if not impossible, meaning you’ll be limited to soft, small bags if you’re heading off for a weekend. The luggage compartment’s proximity to the 3.5-litre turbocharged V6 does also mean that the boot get very hot, so if you shop at Iceland, admittedly unlikely, you might have to get them to deliver… 

The Honda NSX dimensions are 4487mm long, 2217mm wide and 1204mm tall.

Not just one engine, but four combined, with the 3.5-litre twin turbo V6 aided by a pair of electric motors acting on each of the front wheels, and a third electric motor helping torque fill the gaps that come from the internal combustion engine. 

The Honda NSX is four-wheel drive then, driving via a nine-speed dual clutch transmission, though the that broad spread of gears allowing both excellent acceleration and response, combined with a long ninth gear for decent economy during sustained high speed cruising. 

The 3.5-litre twin turbo V6 delivers 507PS on its own, which is impressive enough, but those two front electric motors (with 37PS each) working the front wheels and the rear ‘Direct Drive Motor’ add 74PS to that. The Direct Drive Motor, with 48PS and 147Nm is coupled between the dual clutch transmission and that V6, its primary purpose to provide instantaneous torque when moving off, supplementing the V6’s power and filling in at low revs. It also acts as a generator to recharge the hybrid system’s batteries, as well as acting as the engine starter. 

If you’re adding up all those PS numbers and wondering why the combined total isn’t higher than Honda’s quoted 581PS and 646Nm total system power figures, it's because the combustion engine and the electric motors aren't designed to produce their peak outputs at the same time - the motors fill in for the engine when it's below peak power engine speed.  

Select Quiet mode from the driver choices and the Honda NSX will prioritise the front electric motors, allowing a silent get-away, if you’re leaving early in the morning, or arriving home late at night. When the V6 is required – quite soon, the electric only range of the Honda NSX is extremely limited – then it fires as quietly as possible, the exhaust using its silencers to keep it as quiet as possible. 

In Sport mode, the one you’ll likely use on the road, the V6 is mode dominant, likewise Sport+ and Track seeing the exhaust bypass its silencers to make a more authentic sports car sound. 

There’s a bit of tyre noise, as is the norm in cars like this, likewise, wind noise is obvious at speed, too, but in both respects it’s no worse than its key rivals.  

Like all super and sports cars the Honda NSX is too niche and small volume to be a target for independent crash testing like Euro NCAP’s tests, but it’ll have passed all the necessary safety and crash tests to allow it to be sold worldwide. 

Standard equipment includes anti-lock brakes, driver and passenger front, side, knee and overhead airbags, electronic stability control, traction control and seatbelt pre-tensioners.

The Honda NSX’s largely aluminium structure should also provide good protection in the event of an impact. Optionally, the Honda NSX can be specified with Carbon Ceramic brake discs, which removes brake fade in the extremes of track driving, but the Honda NSX doesn’t feel like a car that owners will be likely to take to a circuit, so they’re a bit unnecessary, and hugely expensive, too.   

The Honda NSX will run briefly at speeds up to 50mph in electric only mode, but it’s an add-on feature to the hybrid system, opposed to its primary purpose. Do it and you’ll be lucky to get more than a mile or two on battery power alone, it operating in EV mode, however briefly, if you select Quiet mode in the driver choices.

Because it sells in such tiny numbers you might not be surprised to learn that the Honda NSX didn't feature in the HonestJohn.co.uk Satisfaction Survey, but given it's made by Honda and costs £150,000 you would expect a pretty high level of reliability.

While it might not be as expensive to buy as its most exotic alternatives, we’re pretty sure insurance will be as high as them – largely because of the huge complexity of it should it need to be repaired. Running costs will be in the realms of any car offering this kind of performance, then, and you’d better hope you live near London, as the only two dealers that can work on it are located in the UK capital. 

If you’re further afield and it breaks down, Honda’s recovery will get it back, and put you up in a 4/5 star hotel for the night if you’re stranded. Nice.

255g/km CO2 might mean a slightly more palatable VED bill, but the near £150,000 cost of it puts it well into the higher payment category for the first 5 years of ownership. So you'll pay an eye-watering £2,005 in the first year and £510 in the subsequent years. At this level of car ownership, though, VED rates just aren’t a consideration, it's unlikely an Honda NSX buyer will care about it. 

There’s only one Honda NSX, and it comes very well specified as standard. The only options you might want to choose are manual sports seats to replace the electric ones, and different leather or Alcantara finishes inside. Otherwise it’s pretty much a case of selecting the colour you want it painted.