Every vehicle in Acura’s lineup, if we don’t count the NSX, is pretty weak, or mild in the best case. That’s the truth. Back in the 1990s, this car maker was loved by people across the world and their vehicles such as Legend, Integra, the RSX Type-S showed the competitors the actual meaning of making cars. Honda’s premium division needs to improve, and it appears to be that it is exactly what Acura is doing.
This is the ARX-05 prototype race car Acura produced together with Team Penske. This racer debuted at The Quail, a Motorsport Gathering at Monterey Car Week. We are lucky because these aren’t going to be just for the show. We will watch two of these vehicles going at it next year in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, whereas the prototype is supposed to make a debut at the Rolex 24 in January 2018.
The new ARX-05 is powered by the twin-turbo 3.5-liter V6 engine which is also under the hood of the Acura TLX, MDX, RDX, and RLX. However, the complete output of the unit will be around 600 hp in this iteration. The famous and now more potent AR35TT engine was used in motorsport before at the 12 Hours of Sebring in 2011-2013, the 24 Hours of Le Mans and LMP2 World Endurance Championship in 2012 as well as at Petit Le Mans in 2016.
Honda Performance Development boss Art St. Cyr said: “We’ve won with the Acura Integra Type R, the RSX, the first-generation NSX and with the Le Mans prototypes. Most recently, we’ve won with the new Acura NSX GT3. The ARX-05 is our fifth-generation prototype, and we expect great things from our partnership with Team Penske.”
Acura has to get involved in the performance car game if the brand plans to stick around. Supercars such as NSX are wonderful indeed, but we need something else besides that. Their emphasis on motorsport is the right path to take. Do you agree?
