The New Acura NSX Might Have A V8

Acura NSX (Credit: Acura)

It seems that Acura might be hiding an ace up its sleeve when it comes to the new NSX. According to Road & Track, the model will get a V-8 engine. Wait, what?

By now everyone has seen the new Acura NSX and has read up on the supercar’s specs. And everyone knows that it has a twin-turbo V-6 engine, plus three electric motors. The car looks sleek, futuristic, and like everything anyone could hope it to be, plus the hybrid powertrain sounds like it’s wondrous. Acura has taken the car out of the shadows, and there’s no V-8 engine in sight, so where is Road & Track getting this theory?

It all stems from a big shift in the layout of the NSX, which came about three years into the car’s development. Acura spoke frankly about it in Detroit, disclosing that the engine was switched to a longitudinal position, going against the layout from the original NSX. The V-6 engine fits transversely, which was the original plan. Acura admits that swapping the engine’s position required serious reworking of the car and it most definitely delayed production.

So why would Acura go to such lengths? Road & Track says the secret is that a V-8 engine the company is planning to introduce later wouldn’t fit transversely, hence the switch. Of course, there is nothing but speculation to back this theory up, but it seems to make sense. Acura even said that the repositioning of the engine was done so that it would be more powerful, which doesn’t make sense unless a larger, optional engine is coming in the future.

Adding even more weight to the Road & Track theory from is that the publication was told by an Acura product planner that the Audi R8 was used as a target for the NSX. The R8 started out with a V-8 engine, which was then swapped for a V-10, so there’s a chance Acura is looking to mimic the same plan of increasing the car’s performance by upgrading the engine throughout its life.