Acura Literally Chopped Up A Ferrari 458 In Order Build The NSX

When an automaker gets its hands on developing a new vehicle the first thing it does is thorough research. Of what you might wonder?
Of its competition, of course! They start looking at the cars and engines that their competitors have released before they actually begin manufacturing their own.

 Actually, Acura is a great example of a manufacturer who went quite far in its research (and that’s a blank understatement) buying a Ferrari 458 and literally tearing it apart in order to analyze and grasp the aluminum construction laying under its skin. And this happened while Acura was developing its new Supercar! Interesting timing, eh? Rumour has it - you can still find the leftovers of the car in the bins around Honda's R&D facility.

Yex is Chief Modeler for Acura, working with teams to help them create mostly clay models from designer direction and through a process of feedback between sketches, the clay model and digital models. Frye is Digital Modeling Group Leader, translating a designer’s concepts into a 3D computer model. Honda owners should be very happy !


Their roles in realizing the highly anticipated NSX as a production-ready Sport Hybrid supercar were, well, super integral. As key players on the team, they acted as skillful artists, bridging design ideals with reality.

“The sketch is always, it’s like the dream - it shouldn’t be 100% possible with available technology, the day a designer draws it. The sketch challenges us to innovate and to find ways to make it happen. With this car, there was such a strong push for it to truly be next-generation. There was so much engineering innovation at play that we were able to accomplish the proportions and the vision of the sketches. This made it really fun to work on,” Yex explains.

As Automobile mentioned earlier, Acura/Honda also did some conventional testing of its NSX against a 458. Interestingly, the 458 "broke left and right" when it went through the tests, developed by the NSX engineers. It turns out that the race version of the NSX is not only marvelous in its looks and very expensive, but it might also end up being more reliable and tough than Ferrari's best vehicles. But what have you expected from the run-of-the-mill Honda?