Cars
The Honda NSX
The Honda NSX was designed to be a rival to the Ferrari 348, and Pininfarina created a concept car for Honda in 1984 called the HP-X. However, the NSX that was ultimately marketed was conceived in Japan and lacked originality in design.
It has never been a secret that the Honda NSX was intended to be a (much more affordable) rival to the V8 Ferrari 348. In fact, that message was clearly conveyed by the frequent use of red, also on Ayrton Senna’s World Championship winning McLaren Honda. On delving more deeply into the history of this mid-engine sports car — back then a novel configuration for the Japanese manufacturer —, it emerges that in 1984 Pininfarina had created a magnificent concept car: the HP-X (Honda Pininfarina Experimental).
In 1984 Pininfarina created a concept car for Honda: the HP-X was the inspiration for the great Japanese car maker’s first mid-engine sports car
At this point, a suspicion naturally arises: given Pininfarina’s long history as a designer for Ferrari, could its recruitment to create the Japanese concept car have been a deliberately mischievous move? We put this question to the great designer Lorenzo Ramaciotti, who headed Pininfarina’s design department for over twenty years. He puts the doubt to rest, explaining that while Honda certainly used Pininfarina, for years, to study future projects, this particular prototype, which Ramaciotti himself worked on, represents an entirely different stylistic language to that used for Ferrari, although every bit as beautiful.
