You Can Own Ayrton Senna’s Very Own Honda NSX

As cars with famous provenance go, this one’s rather special. An opportunity has arisen to own the very Honda NSX owned by Ayrton Senna, three-time Formula 1 world champion and widely regarded as one of the greatest F1 drivers of all time.

The car is a red 1991 NSX, and was kept by Senna at his home in Portugal. 1991 was the season that the Brazilian took the second of his three World Drivers’ Championships, all of which were won with the McLaren Honda squad. His connection to the car, of course, is well-documented: thanks to the F1 team’s Honda links, Senna was brought in to give feedback on the NSX’s handling during its development, a fact that’s now invariably brought up whenever early NSXs come into conversation (although the actual level of input he had is up for debate).

Senna owned two other NSXs around this time, but this red example is easily the most well-known: provided to him by Honda, it’s the one he was pictured washing in a series of famous photos, and filmed giving a thrashing in the 1992 documentary, Racing is in My Blood.

It’s not clear if Senna still owned the NSX when he tragically died at Imola in 1994, but the car remained in Portugal until 2013 when it was acquired and brought to the UK by its current owner, Robert McFagan. It was driven around Imola in 2019 at an event to mark the 25th anniversary of Senna’s death and now, with the 30th anniversary approaching, it’s up for sale on Auto Trader.

NSX values have been on the rise for a long time now, with the entry point for first-gen manual cars like this generally sitting at around £60,000, and easily cresting three figures for good condition examples. Naturally, the Senna connection has driven the price of this one up some more. Quite a lot more, actually: it’s listed at £500,000.

Still, this is a pretty unbelievable opportunity to own not just one of the greatest sports cars of the 1990s, but one both partly developed and owned by an F1 driver whose legacy in the sport is still felt 30 years after his death. For that alone, half a million almost seems like a bargain.

Images: @senna_unofficial