Ayrton Senna’s personal Honda NSX heads to auction with huge £800k price tag
A Honda NSX used by Ayrton Senna during his F1 career is now up for auction.
One of Ayrton Senna’s personally used Honda NSX cars has come up for sale, but potential buyers will need deep pockets for this slice of motorsport history.
Senna’s long association with Honda led to him being given a trio of NSX cars for use during his career, one of which is now up for auction.
Ayrton Senna Honda NSX auction details revealed
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British auction house RM Sotheby’s is set to auction off one of Senna’s Honda NSXs later this year, with the car going under the hammer in its flagship London auction at the Peninsula London in October 2026.
The auction presents a ‘carefully curated selection of significant automobiles’ and there can be few cars more intrinsically linked with a grand prix driver than the Honda NSX with the late Ayrton Senna.
The three-time F1 world champion enjoyed a particularly close relationship with Honda, which started at Lotus in 1987 as Senna won two races en route to third place overall.
He swapped to McLaren in 1988 and infamously beat Alain Prost to the championship as the two titans dominated the season with the MP4/4.
Senna was embraced by Honda, who asked him to help refine a new performance car, which would become the NSX.
With the Brazilian judging the initial prototype chassis to be a “little fragile”, Honda took his feedback seriously and stiffened the frame significantly, as well as refining the suspension tuning based on Senna’s reporting from behind the wheel.
With Senna becoming a two-time F1 world champion by the start of 1991, Honda rewarded Senna with the use of three NSX cars as they moved from concept to production.
During that season, in which he would again win the title for McLaren-Honda, Senna was given two black NSXs as well as a red car with a black roof.
It is this latter machine, chassis number T000233, that is now up for auction with a guide price starting at £500,000, although bids are estimated as potentially reaching as high as £800,000.
The car was first imported by Honda Automobil de Portugal, being registered on March 22 1991, and was stored in Lisbon for Senna’s use whenever in Portugal – he had bought a property in the Quinta do Lago resort.
Commuting to races in the NSX during the European leg of the season, he was photographed by the famous Studio Colombo arriving in the F1 drivers’ car park at Estoril that year, posing with the car for Enrico Colombo’s lens.
This NSX was also featured in the 1992 documentary Ayrton Senna: Racing Is In My Blood as he was shown spiritedly driving the Honda on camera, as well as washing the car himself with a hose.
Following Senna’s death at Imola in 1994, the records for the car show it was transferred to Laboa Etablissement in Lisbon, with Honda confirming via paperwork in the years since the connection to the late World Champion.
The car will be supplied with copies of this Honda paperwork, as well as the warranty book and the full Portuguese ownership history documentation.
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It moved to the Algarve in 2009, being bought by the owner of MSCAR Comércio de Automóveis SA.
In 2013, it moved to the UK after being purchased by Mr. Robert McFagan in 2013, and it was registered for use on the road in May 2016.
It returned to Japan in 2024, following purchase by its current owner, but is now back in the UK for the purposes of the RM Sotheby’s auction.
Ownership moves aside, other famous appearances for the car include a trip to Imola in 2019 for the 25th anniversary of the Brazilian driver’s death. On that occasion, circuit boss and former F1 team owner, Giancarlo Minardi, drove the car for a lap.
Five years later, the car showed up for a Senna tribute along the Hamilton Straight at the Silverstone Festival meeting, which was the largest vehicle-based tribute to Senna’s life as the NSX was joined by 11 F1 cars, as well as other single-seaters, karts, cars, and motorbikes that Senna had raced or driven.
According to the pre-sale documentation for the car, there is “No road car model more associated with the life of F1 legend Ayrton Senna than the NSX.
“But the proposition of owning an example that Honda supplied for him to actively use and enjoy is truly unmissable. Captured on film and in iconic photographs, chassis T000233 is ready to be adored by a new motorsport enthusiast.”
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