It isn’t known yet if a Type R would stick with Super Handling All-Wheel Drive. If the track-focused NSX dropped its two front electric motors, that would leave a 47-hp e-motor attached to the crank, and the 500-hp, 3.5-liter twin-turbo V6 to make up the difference to 650 hp.
If you’ve paid close attention to NSX press, you’ll know that there’s been chatter about a Type R version since four months after the car debuted in Detroit, which was eight months before the standard coupe actually went on sale. A piece in Australia’s Motoring magazine from May 2015 declared “news out of Honda reveals the company is preparing” an NSX Type R that “could exceed 447 kw and land in showrooms by 2018.” That would have been 600 hp, if said car had shown up. That article was written by the same Peter Lyons who wrote the present Forbes piece.
Autocar wrote about the potential go-faster coupe in 2016, predicting “a lighter, track-focused Type R NSX” that could lose its two front-mounted e-motors, and therefore its all-wheel drive. That weight loss, combined with lighter parts on what would be a limited-edition offering, would really move the needle. There might even be a place for the kind of active aerodynamics the carmaker eschewed for the standard car, but took care to patent.
The Forbes report has a friend in Japanese site Spyder7.com, though. The Nippon outlet predicted an NSX Type R would debut this year with 650 metric horsepower, or 641 U.S. horses. However, whereas Spyder7 figured a Type R to cost something like Lexus LFA money, Forbes thinks $200,000 is more like it, representing a $43,000 jump over the standard car.
The Tokyo show opens to the media on October 23. We’d love to find an early Type-R-ish present under the lights.
