Meet The Mid-Engine V8 Honda Supercar That Almost Was

Meet The Mid-Engine V8 Honda Supercar That Almost Was originally appeared on Autoblog.
In the mid-1970s, when the oil crisis had brought much of America to its knees, Honda was on the cutting edge of efficiency innovations. Its now-famous Compound Vortex Controlled Combustion system allowed the 1975 Civic and subsequent models to pass emissions tests without an expensive and power-sapping catalytic converter, prompting Ford and Chrysler to license the technology. GM executives, however, dismissed the technology as only being suitable for motorcycles and very small cars, not a V8. "Well, I have looked at this design, and while it might work on some little toy motorcycle engine... I see no potential for it on one of our GM car engines."
Dr. Soichiro Honda disagreed, and to prove a point, he had a Chevrolet Impala with a 5.7-liter V8 shipped to Japan, fitted it with the CVCC tech, and sent it back to the EPA for testing, showing the world that the invention cleaned up the emissions from any engine. Around the same time, in 1973, the automaker was considering a mid-engine supercar with a V8 of its own (shown in a video of the new exhibit at the Honda Collection Hall on the モンベル好きS660乗りYouTube channel), way before the first-gen NSX arrived in 1990. After all, Honda was clearly ahead of the curve, so why not redefine it?
Little is known of Honda's contemporary plans for the engine, but we doubt it would have been as humongous as the 5.7-liter beast in the Impala because, although front-engine supercar layouts were being considered by Honda's design team, a mid-engine design made it all the way to a full-size clay model. The sketches show a styling strategy that was typical of the time, blending smooth curves with sharp lines. Despite some clear British influence, it also had a distinctly Japanese look.
View the 2 images of this gallery on the original article
Sadly, it never went further than a clay model, but now, some volunteers in the Honda design department have come together to build a static model complete with paint and wheels. Since it's much too late to waste resources on building a working prototype, this is just a one-fourth-scale model, but the original designers were consulted to ensure that the lines and proportions are just as they originally envisaged.
View the 5 images of this gallery on the original article
Like this forgotten supercar concept, the NSX that eventually did arrive had pop-up headlights, though its design was more directly influenced by the Pininfarina-designed HP-X concept from 1984. The NSX name stood for New, Sportscar, eXperimental, and had Honda chosen to press on with its V8 supercar, it certainly would have fit the bill. Back then, the oil crisis dictated most decisions in the automotive space, and a supercar was seen as too great a risk.
But there's no doubt that the NSX we did eventually get was born in the minds of those mid-1970s designers, and although a V8 Honda supercar never happened, the idea of pushing the brand beyond what others think is possible has been a hallmark of its success. With the automaker working on everything from reusable rockets to hydrogen-powered cars these days, any new idea it has in the pipeline is always worth keeping an eye on. Some may not make reality in their initial form, but the seeds planted by Honda's experimental cars certainly inform future production.
Meet The Mid-Engine V8 Honda Supercar That Almost Was first appeared on Autoblog on Jun 18, 2025
This story was originally reported by Autoblog on Jun 18, 2025, where it first appeared.

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