{"id":910651,"date":"2026-09-26T18:08:16","date_gmt":"2026-09-26T18:08:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/910651\/"},"modified":"2026-09-26T18:08:16","modified_gmt":"2026-09-26T18:08:16","slug":"one-owner-nsx-zanardi-edition-sets-a-new-bar-at-635500","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/910651\/","title":{"rendered":"One-Owner NSX Zanardi Edition Sets a New Bar at $635,500"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\tStay up to speed with stories written by drivers, for drivers.<\/p>\n

Get automotive news, DIY tips, market trends, in-depth car profiles, and more right in your email inbox.<\/p>\n

The Acura NSX sure is living a comfortable retirement. It\u2019s still plenty healthy, no one\u2019s patting it on the shoulder and sending it to bed, and, crucially, its stock is way up. Exhibit A, for this week, anyhow, is a 1999 NSX Zanardi Edition that just sold for $635,500<\/a>\u2014a full $200K over the #1 (concours) value in the Hagerty Price Guide<\/a>. This was a special variant, of course, but we really shouldn\u2019t be too surprised at the result given the trajectory NSX values have been on of late.<\/p>\n

\"1999Stefan Lombard<\/a> <\/p>\n

\"1999Bring a Trailer\/The_Dude_Abides<\/p>\n

\"1999Bring a Trailer\/The_Dude_Abides<\/p>\n

Honda suspected it might have a winner on its hands when it first began plotting the course for the NSX. That course began in the early 1980s, with the HP-X concept, a Pininfarina-designed wedge unveiled at the 1984 Turin Motor Show, with V-6 power and a mandate to rival Ferrari for performance and every other car in the Honda lineup for comfort and usability.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The firm\u2019s engineers wasted no time in applying the lessons learned from that one-off exercise into the car that would fully realize their aims: the\u00a0New\u00a0Sportscar eXperimental. The NSX employed an industry-first all-aluminum semi-monocoque structure, and although early planning included the Legend\u2019s 2.7-liter V-6, work soon began on an all-new, 3.0-liter six with VTEC. When paired with a five-speed manual, it made 270 horsepower; in cars with the four-speed automatic, output was 252 hp.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When the NSX debuted at the 1989 Chicago Auto Show, no one could have known just how stellar it would prove to be. Honda engineers included, because the car required some now-well-documented fine-tuning from F1 champ Ayrton Senna to realize its full potential. But when it finally went on sale in 1991, here was a hand-built, 170-mph, mid-engined machine with perfect balance, daily drivability, and Honda reliability. At around $65,000, it was the most expensive Japanese car ever built at the time.<\/p>\n

Cars produced through 1994 featured a fixed roof, but in 1995 the NSX came with a removable roof panel and was dubbed the NSX-T, a configuration that dominated production almost exclusively through 2001 and became the sole roofline after that, until the NSX bowed out in 2005. In 1997, Honda upped displacement to 3.2 liters (for 290 hp) and added a gear to manual-equipped cars, which were the only ones fitted with the 3.2; NSXs with the automatic soldiered on with the smaller V-6. (In NSX nomenclature, all 3.0 cars are known as NA1, while those with the 3.2 are referred to as NA2). Fixed headlights replaced the pop-ups for 2002.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"1999Bring a Trailer\/The_Dude_Abides<\/p>\n

\"1999Bring a Trailer\/The_Dude_Abides<\/p>\n

\"1999Bring a Trailer\/The_Dude_Abides<\/p>\n

\"1999Bring a Trailer\/The_Dude_Abides<\/p>\n

\"1999Bring a Trailer\/The_Dude_Abides<\/p>\n

Throughout the NSX\u2019s 15-year production run, the cars got sharper through incremental improvements, though the biggest news by far arrived in November 1998, when Acura unveiled the\u00a01999 Alex Zanardi Edition<\/a>\u00a0NSX at the Miami International Auto Show, built to celebrate Zanardi\u2019s back-to-back CART championships in Honda-powered cars. Just 51 would be built, including a media loaner and one for Zanardi himself; the other 49 were sold to the public. All were painted New Formula Red, with an exclusive black interior, a fixed roof, unassisted steering, an upgraded suspension, metallic gray BBS alloy wheels (16 inches front, 17 rear), and a unique firewall plaque designating the build number, with Zanardi\u2019s engraved autograph. They also weighed 149 pounds less than a standard NSX.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Our feature car\u00a0is #22 in the series, a one-owner example with 23,000 original miles. Based on the photos, which depict the car as very clean but not perfect, and the description, which notes scrapes underneath the front bumper cover, we\u2019d typically describe it as #2 (excellent) condition, a rating with a valuation range of roughly $245K\u2013$330K. So this sale price, at double the money, is surprising. But it\u2019s not shocking. Rare, desirable versions of great cars can and do blow through estimates, particularly when the great cars they are based on are hot. And while NSXs aren\u2019t particularly rare, they are hot.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Their prices remained steady until 2020, but like many values during the pandemic, they jumped for the next couple of years. They cooled briefly then, along with much of the market, though the NA1 cars leveled off more than their NA2 counterparts. And then values began to rise again last year; now NA1s are up more than 80% over their 2016 values, and NA2s are up 125%. In the last two years we\u2019ve seen late NSX-Ts easily\u00a0topping $300K<\/a>\u00a0and even\u00a0approaching $400K<\/a>. Rising tides do, in fact, lift all boats, and because the Zanardi Edition is a lightweight boat, it has floated nearly 175% over its value a decade ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And there may be more in store for these rare editions. Other special NSXs, like the Japan-only NSX-R, are far more common (635 built), and right-hand-drive only, and they are now regularly topping half a million or more, with\u00a0one eclipsing $1M<\/a>\u00a0in May 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"1999Bring a Trailer\/The_Dude_Abides<\/p>\n

\"1999Bring a Trailer\/The_Dude_Abides<\/p>\n

\"1999Bring a Trailer\/The_Dude_Abides<\/p>\n

Is it possible that\u00a0Alex Zanardi<\/a>\u00a0himself is a factor here, too? Maybe. The late racer, who died in May, lived an almost mythical life, not simply because of his time behind the wheel and the races and titles he won, but because of the courage he showed to continue racing despite a tragedy that nearly killed him. And there is also, of course, The Pass\u2026<\/a><\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t the first Zanardi NSX to sell publicly<\/a>, but it does top the last result, from February 2024, by more than $500K, and the previous high result, six years ago, by $350K. So for now, this week\u2019s sale is a benchmark. We\u2019ll get another good look into the NSX market in a month, when RM Sotheby\u2019s puts\u00a0Ayrton Senna\u2019s personal NSX<\/a>\u00a0on the block in London. The presale estimate there is \u00a3500K\u2013\u00a3800K ($682K\u2013$1.1M), but will anyone be surprised to see another breakout result? Not me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stay up to speed with stories written by drivers, for drivers. Get automotive news, DIY tips, market trends,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":910652,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[49,48,314611,61],"class_list":["post-910651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-car-acura-nsx-1999-3-2l-zanardi-edition-2dr-coupe-6-cyl-3179cc-290hp-pgm-fi","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/910651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=910651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/910651\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/910652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=910651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=910651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=910651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}