The Rising Gun

NO, it’s NOT the bastard child of a union between Honda and Holden Special Vehicles. Instead, this matt-black monster is the reincarnation of Honda’s stillborn NSX super coupe.

Honda had been teasing us for years with plans to revive the NSX, but that pesky GFC saw the project crash and burn. Until now.

What you see here is the Honda HSV-010 GT (in this case, HSV stands for Honda Sports Velocity), packing a 3.4-litre V8 good for around 370kW and 400Nm stuffed into an 1100kg carbonfibre racer. Racer?

Yes, the HSV GT is Honda’s entry into Super GT for 2010 (think the Japanese version of V8 Supercars) and this ‘next NSX’ isn’t scheduled to be produced as a road car. Ever.

Honda’s not too keen to broadcast the point, but the HSV has risen from the ashes of its long drawn-out plans to build a new-gen NSX.

When the original NSX went out of production in ’05, Honda started work on a new, upscale front-engined V10 version to tackle the likes of the Lexus LF A and Aston Martin DB9. We saw one concept at the 2007 Detroit show, then things got more serious. That car became the Acura Sports, which was to be built in two guises.

For the road, the Acura (Honda’s luxury arm) Sports got a 5.0-litre V10 and a trick new-gen version of Honda’s Super Handling All-Wheel Drive system. It was envisioned as a full-house, hi-tech flagship.

But the blades of the GFC cut deep and Honda scrapped the NSX, along with its Formula One program. Instead, funds were diverted to volume-selling fuel sippers such as the Insight hybrid, rather than expensive-to-develop, slow-selling supercars.

Shrouded in secrecy, however, Honda was also prepping a separate, pure race-car version of the Acura Sports, and it’s this front-engined, rear-drive V8 coupe we’ll see rubbing doors with Nissan GT-Rs throughout the 2010 Super GT season.

Up front, the HSV’s 3397cc HR 10EG V8 is a spin-off from the engine Honda runs in Japan’s Formula Nippon single-seater race category.