Ayrton Senna's personal Honda NSX is going up for auction, with the 1991 sports car expected to fetch between £500,000 and £800,000 when it goes under the hammer. RM Sotheby's will sell the car in October at The Peninsula London, with bidding taking place on 31 October.
The Japanese sports car was Senna's personal road vehicle, and the late three-time Formula One World Champion drove it to the 1991 Portuguese Grand Prix. It was personally allocated to him by Honda Portugal for his exclusive use in Europe.
The car, chassis number T000233, also featured in the 1992 documentary "Ayrton Senna: Racing Is in My Blood."
How Senna came to own the NSX
At the start of 1991, Senna had already won two World Championships with the McLaren-Honda team and was chasing a third. Honda gave him three NSXs for his personal use as a token of gratitude, and T000233 was one of them.
Unlike the other two cars, which were finished in black, T000233 was configured in Formula Red with a contrasting black roof and black leather interior. It was imported by Honda Automóvel de Portugal.
The car was registered on 22 March 1991 with the number plate "SX-25-59." It was kept in Lisbon and delivered to Senna whenever he was in Portugal, where he owned a property in Quinta do Lago.
Senna used the NSX regularly, including driving it to the Portuguese Grand Prix at Estoril, where he qualified third and finished second.
A car built for a champion
The Honda NSX was the first mass-produced car with an aluminium monocoque construction, a design that cut weight by 30 per cent and raised the engine's redline from a theoretical 7,300rpm to a full 8,000rpm.
The NSX is closely tied to Senna's public image. In his 1992 documentary, he is filmed dumping the clutch and spinning the NSX's rear wheels, and in another scene he is shown in jeans and a button-down shirt, washing the car with a hosepipe.
The car's ownership history
Records from the Lisbon Automobile Registry Office show the car was registered in the Portuguese capital in February 1995, ten months after Senna's death at Imola, by a company called Laboa Etablissement.
A fax from Honda confirming the car's provenance, since reaffirmed by Honda Motor Europe, shows the NSX was in the care of Honda dealership Nipomotor in September 1997.
In November 2009, it was bought by the owner of MSCAR Comércio de Automóveis SA, based in the Algarve city of Faro. Robert McFagan then bought the car in 2013 and had it shipped to the United Kingdom, where it was registered for road use in May 2016.
Return to Imola and the road to auction
In 2019, Senna's NSX returned to the Imola circuit in Italy to mark 25 years since the champion's fatal crash there. Giancarlo Minardi, founder of the Minardi Formula One team and boss of the circuit, drove the car during demonstration runs.
T000233 later returned to Japan after being bought in 2024 by its current owner, based in Nagoya. It has since come back to the UK to be offered for sale by RM Sotheby's at The London Auction.
Sholto Gilbertson, director of sales at RM Sotheby's in the UK, said: "Senna's legacy runs far deeper than his three world championships. His style and elegance are everlasting, and when you think of Senna, nonchalantly dressed in jeans, white socks and brown loafers behind the wheel of a road car, you think of an NSX."
"This is a wonderful opportunity to own a genuine piece of sporting and cultural history," he said.
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