Yahoo Autos Honda will debut the Specialty Sports Concept — could it be the next Acura NSX or Honda S2000?
The Japan Mobility Show, formerly the Tokyo Motor Show, starts in less than a month. Honda always makes statements at its home show, even if that just meant displaying a ton of products spanning a ton of possibilities. This year, Japan's second-largest automaker is going to check all the boxes with three world premieres of new product, a wide variety variety, and plenty to see. Our primary interest starts with the debut of the Honda Specialty Sports Concept, an electric sports car "which will enable the driver to experience the pure joy of driving (driving pleasure) and transcend the constraints of time." The debates have already begun as to what kind of car this might be: Reborn NSX? Or reborn Honda S2000?
The image above is from 2022, teased when Honda began going public with the large-scale electrification plans that will see the automaker exit internal-combustion powertrains by 2040. Let's make it clear we have no idea if either vehicle in the teaser image has anything to do with what's appearing in Japan next month. We only know that automaker CEO Toshihiro Mibe said last year that Honda is planning to put two electric sports cars on the market before the end of the decade, one a "specialty" model and one a "flagship." The S2000 and NSX conjecture fits that description.
In support of the S2000 theory, watchers note that Honda introduced the S2000 partly as a celebration of the automaker's 50th anniversary, and this year is Honda's 75th anniversary. Also, the S2000 bowed in concept form at the 1995 Tokyo Motor Show as the Sport Study Model (SSM). In support of the NSX theory, Acura teased a Performance Electric Vision Design Study one month ago with lines that looked a lot like we'd expect from a futuristic NSX. The NSX has historically favored U.S. introductions, however; the original debuted at the 1989 Chicago Auto Show, the reboot debuted as a concept and later in production form at the Detroit Auto Show.
