One to Buy: ex-Ayrton Senna 1991 Honda NSX
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After a debut F1 season in 1984 that saw him bag a remarkable three podium finishes driving for the uncompetitive Toleman team, Ayrton Senna spent three seasons at Lotus where, in 48 outings, he took six race wins, 16 pole positions and posted 22 top three finishes.
Senna’s heroics during the 1985 and ‘86 seasons attracted the interest of Honda which had by this time developed the premier engine in F1. When Lotus agreed to run Satoru Nakajima in their second car for the ‘87 season, Honda came onboard with a two-year engine supply deal.
For 1988, Honda decided to end an association with Williams that stretched back to 1983 and instead sign a multi-year engine supply deal with McLaren. Having become Honda’s number one man in F1, Senna moved across to the McLaren outfit and, despite going up against two-time champion, Alain Prost, the Brazilian went on to claim the 1989 Drivers’ Championship. That season, Senna started from pole a remarkable 13 times in 16 races and won eight Grand Prix.
Senna subsequently went on to claim the 1990 and ‘91 titles driving Honda-powered McLarens. He developed an extremely close relationship with the Japanese manufacturer and was directly involved in development of the firm’s NSX supercar. After production got underway, Senna was allocated a trio of NSXs, one of which will be going under the hammer at RM Sotheby’s London sale on October 31st.
As Senna owned a villa in Portugal (which served as his primary European residence), Honda agreed to supply him with an NSX for his personal use while in the country. That car, chassis JHMNA11500T000233, was the first NSX imported by Lisbon-based Honda Automobil de Portugal. Configured in Formula Red (Senna’s other two NSXs were both Black), chassis ‘T000233’ was registered SX-25-59 on March 22nd 1991 and delivered to Senna every time he arrived in Portugal.
According to RM Sotheby’s: “Senna clearly made good use of the car during the European leg of the 1991 season—the F1 icon having bought a property in the Quinta do Lago resort. He commuted to the Portuguese Grand Prix at Estoril, a race for which he would qualify third and finish second, aboard chassis T000233 and it would feature in the 1992 documentary Ayrton Senna: Racing Is In My Blood, with Senna dumping the clutch and spinning up the rear wheels on camera. Perhaps most famously for “SX-25-59”, Senna was pictured in jeans and a buttoned-down shirt washing the car with a hosepipe.”
“Ten months after Senna was killed at Imola, according to the accompanying certificate of records issued by the Lisbon Automobile Registry Office, the car was registered in the Portuguese capital city in February 1995 by Laboa Etablissement. A fax from Honda confirming this car’s Senna provenance, which has been reaffirmed by Honda Motor Europe, further notes that the NSX was under the care of its own dealership, Nipomotor, come September 1997. It was next bought by the owner of MSCAR Comércio de Automóveis SA, based in the Algarve city of Faro in November 2009, prior to being purchased by Mr Robert McFagan in 2013. He had the car freighted to the United Kingdom, where it was registered for use on the road in May 2016.
The NSX made a poignant visit to Imola in 2019, marking 25th years since Senna’s fatal crash at the Italian venue, with Minardi F1 team founder and circuit boss Giancarlo Minardi in the driver’s seat. The car subsequently returned to its home country, having been acquired in 2024 by the consigning owner in Nagoya, Japan, but has returned to the UK to be offered for sale by RM Sotheby’s at The London Auction.”
