Get to Know Honda’s ’95 NSX GT1 Turbo Le Mans Race Car
Spend a few minutes with one of the two NSX GT1 Turbo race cars that Honda took to Le Mans in 1995 to do battle with McLaren and their formidable F1.
After running three NSXs in the GT2 class of the 1994 24 Hours of Le Mans, Honda stepped it up for 1995. They fielded three cars again, but this time two of them were turbocharged NSX GT1s designed to tackle GT1 class and the might of the McLaren F1.
Sadly for these awesome machines, endurance glory was not to be. The car featured in this video is #47, which suffered a clutch failure that knocked it out of the race after just seven laps. Its sister car, #46, survived the race but, having completed just 121 laps, was not classified.
The third car, #84, fared much better in the GT2 class. With Keiichi Tsuchiya, Akira Iida and Kunimitsu Takahashi at the wheel it completed 275 laps and finished eighth overall, winning GT2 class.
This video features the number 47 NSX GT1 Turbo raced in the 1995 24 Hours of Le Mans. The car was built to fight for overall victory and its 2977cc 650 horsepower twin turbo was a work of art that reflected all that Honda had learned in its time pushing boundaries in the turbo era of Formula 1.
“The limit may be set at a high level, but once an experienced driver takes it beyond that limit the difficulty of controlling such a car turns into pure joy.”
Drift King Keiichi Tsuchiya, who drove its sister car to GT2 glory in 1995, takes it for a test drive in the video. He’s not afraid of the gas pedal, eliciting the NSX’s magic engine note with glee and testing the handling of the car around Twin Ring Motegi. He also provides some excellent feedback on the car, and some philosophy about how a GT car should feel.
Great stuff, and a rare and awesome machine.
