This Acura NSX-T Cost $90K in 2005—and $322,500 in 2024

An Acura NSX-T from 2005 sold this week for $322,500. That’s an auction record for the model. It’s well ahead of the condition #1 (“concours,” or “best in the world”) value in our Hagerty Price Guide, and nearly as much as the #1 value of a six-speed Ferrari F430. Needless to say, it’s also way more than this hot Honda cost to drive off the lot 20 years ago. Most people considered the ’05 NSX’s $90,000 MSRP to be overpriced at the time. Now, it looks like a bargain. Oh, to have a time machine . . .

It’s hard to understate how big of a splash the original Honda (badged as an Acura in North America and Hong Kong) NSX made when it debuted at the 1989 Chicago Auto Show. Up to that point, everybody knew that Honda could build a solid car, and anybody who watched 10 seconds of an F1 race knew Honda could make a great engine. Peppy coupes and hatchbacks drove both of these points home to enthusiasts, but Honda (and all the other Japanese companies, for that matter) hadn’t yet built a top-tier performance car of much consequence.

The world of expensive, mid-engined “exotics” was still European (mainly Italian) territory, and the cars that inhabited it were finicky, impractical, and often both uncomfortable and difficult to drive. For the company churning out Civics and Preludes to enter this space was a big deal. Yet Honda pulled it off, creating a product that offered all the ingredients of a mid-engine supercar, but which was also practical, comfortable, well-ventilated, and bred with the bulletproof reliability of your math teacher’s Accord.

In making its daily-drivable supercar, Honda was characteristically thorough. The company built a new state-of-the-art factory with a hand-picked staff just to screw the thing together. Its all-aluminum monocoque was an industry first for production cars. So were its engine’s titanium connecting rods. As for the rest of the engine, the naturally aspirated V-6 also made heavy use of aluminum and utilized Honda’s signature variable valve timing system—VTEC—for efficient, smooth driving around town but freer breathing and maximum power at the top of the rev range. The engineers positioned the seats and fuel tank in such a way that neither fuel level nor the person in the car would throw off the weight distribution. They also looked to F-16 fighter jets when shaping the cockpit to give the driver good visibility, which isn’t an easy feat in a mid-engine car. They even gave it decent trunk space, which really isn’t easy in a mid-engine car.

When it debuted for the 1991 model year, the NSX was a home run for Honda. Motor Trend called it “the best sports car ever built,” and the rest of the automotive press wasn’t much less effusive in its praise. In fact, the NSX was so good and so well thought out that Honda barely changed it over a 15-year production run.

That’s not to say there weren’t significant updates. In 1995, an open-top targa version called the NSX-T debuted, along with drive-by-wire for the throttle. In 1997, the V-6 engine grew from 3.0 to 3.2 liters, the brakes got bigger, a limited-slip differential joined the party, and manual-transmission cars gained a gear, for six total. In 2002, there was a significant facelift, as the pop-up headlights gave way (sadly) to fixed xenon HID units, the nose and tail got reshaped, and the targa soldiered on as the only available roof in the U.S. Under the new-ish aluminum skin, spring rates were higher, the anti-roll bar was beefier, and the rear tires were wider.

Even so, the Honda/Acura flagship was getting older, more expensive, and less competitive. In 2002, Car and Driver lamented: “We continue to love this car. But we think these modest updates on an aging (introduced in 1990), pricey exotic are similar to rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.” A bit harsh, sure, but this was a time when the 90 grand Acura was easily undercut by an 80 grand 911, a 74 grand Viper, and a 50 grand Corvette Z06. All of those were much newer designs, too. It was a tougher and tougher sell, and from 1999 on, Acura never sold more than 200 NSXs per year in the U.S. The model disappeared after 2005, and following a decade of hemming and hawing, Honda released an all-new, hybridized NSX that never gained anywhere near the following of the original.

After they went from new exotics to used ones, NSXs did depreciate, but not by much, and they never actually got “cheap” before values really started ticking up about 10 years ago. Compared to other Japanese high-performance cars, they also tended to go to mature owners who were less Midnight Club and more country club. As a result, not very many of them got the street racing treatment. And because VTEC Hondas are essentially indestructible, survivorship is high. Still, the NSX’s rare combo of excellent driving dynamics, high performance, and overall usability make it one of the most desirable cars of its time, and prices have surged well into six figures for the cleanest examples.

Some people prefer the purity of early NSXs, but the later ones are quicker, more developed, and significantly rarer, so they tend to be worth a fair bit more. The final 2005 model-year cars are also worth a few extra grand over 2002–05 cars.

The car sold this week wears Silverstone Metallic paint over Onyx leather. Not the sexiest colors, then, but it’s a desirable final-year U.S.-market example. It also had just one owner until last year, and it shows only 1955 miles, which seems like a good number: It’s low enough that there’s plenty of life left in it (assuming it was stored well), but also not so low that a pang of guilt would come with every slow, rolling tick of the odometer.

The bidders seemed to agree, and we now have a new high-water mark for what the best-preserved NSXs can sell for.