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Acura NSX GT3 to make public debut this week at Mid-Ohio

The new Acura NSX had a very long and very public gestation period. The car went through a number of redesigns and revisions, all while enthusiasts watched and waited. With the production version just now ramping up for customer deliveries, Acura revealed that it was working on a race car for FIA GT3 homologation. While the car was shown in New York, no one outside of Honda has seen it testing on track. This week, the NSX GT3 will make its public testing debut at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course ahead of the Pirelli World Challenge and IndyCar races. View 13 Photos While the car will be on track during testing and practice sessions, it won't actually be competing with the rest of the field. The car is still in the testing phase and won't be fully FIA approved until at least September. Acura is confident that the car will make its racing debut in 2017. The company also made it clear that this is not the final version of the car and that things like aero and engine tuning are still being worked out. Until now, the NSX GT3 has only tested at private events in Europe, Japan and the US. This week, the NSX GT3 will be piloted by Dutch racing driver Peter Kox. Kox drives for RealTime Racing, a team that currently campaigns an Acura TLX GT. This week's car will be the primary tester, though if something goes sideways there are multiple backup cars. The NSX GT3 differs in a number of ways from the road car, most notably its lack of hybrid all-wheel drive system. The NSX GT3 uses the same twin-turbocharged V6 as the road car, but sends all the power through the rear wheels. It also uses the same space frame as the road car. While the road going version receives final assembly in Honda's Ohio factory, final touches to the GT3 car are done elsewhere. Although the car will only be testing on Thursday and Friday, it will be on display all weekend in the paddock. For more info on this weekend's Mid-Ohio race, check out the Pirelli World Challenge page here. Related Video: Motorsports Acura Honda honda nsx acura nsx gt3

2015 Acura NSX burns to the ground at the 'Ring [w/video]

Assuming all goes to plan, automakers test their vehicles to the breaking point in the months and years leading up to that vehicle's actual release into the public. Which is good, because it's much better for a car to break in glorious fashion in the hands of the company that produces it than in the driveway of an owner who just spent their hard-earned cash to get it. Such was the case with this production-guise Acura NSX prototype that we saw running around the Nurburgring just the other day. We can't be 100-percent certain, but the burned-out carcass is wearing the same number plate as the car that was spotted earlier, so it's likely the very same NSX. We have no idea what was the cause of the blaze that turned this Acura into the car-b-q you see pictured above, but our spy shooters on the ground in Germany say it was not involved in any collision, having caught on fire all on its own with engineers behind the wheel. The good news is that nobody was hurt, though the car is quite clearly a complete loss. We're sure there's another ready to to test in the burned car's place... just as soon as the engineers at Honda figure out exactly what went wrong. Have a look at the smoldering aftermath up above, and feel free to scroll down below to see a video of the car in much better circumstances.

Hurricane Sandy cost automakers 15,000 vehicles, may have ruined up to 200k

Hurricane Sandy was the largest Atlantic storm in US history, and its total economic impact is just now coming into view. According to Automotive News, Toyota, Chrysler, Nissan and Honda are set to scrap around 15,000 new vehicles ruined by the storm. Nissan alone accounts for about 40 percent of those, with 6,000 Nissan and Infiniti models deeded "un-saleable" due to damage. The company saw 56 dealerships shuttered due to the storm, but 51 of those have since reopened.
Toyota, meanwhile, had some 4,000 vehicles at its Newark port facility, and of those, 3,000 may be scrapped. An additional 825 were dealer inventory when they were ruined. Honda and Acura dealers are reportedly sending 3,440 vehicles to the salvage yard. By comparison, Chrysler weathered the storm fairly well with 825 units destroyed, while Hyundai suffered only 400 lost units and Kia scrapped around 200.
As you may recall, Fisker also suffered some losses, and Automotive News reports the manufacturer saw 320 Karma models damaged beyond repair. Ford and General Motors have yet to come up with estimates, and no automaker has commented on the full cost of replacing the vehicles.