Announced at Monterey Car Week, Honda is launching a new Heritage Racing Program that lets enthusiasts purchase retired and restored race cars. The program is unique among Japanese carmakers, and falls under the jurisdiction of the Honda Racing Corporation (HRC) subsidiary that oversees the company’s motorsports activities. And quite frankly, it’s genius.
Unless it’s a beloved championship-winning car, there isn’t much of an afterlife for a retired race car. The winningest and most historically significant cars get put into the carmaker’s museums, but throughout a career there could be dozens of similar cars and the manufacturer collections only have so much space.
Those that aren’t special can be repurposed as mules to test new parts for future race cars, cannibalized for spares, or simply dismantled. However, as events like the Monterey Historics have shown, there’s a significant number of enthusiasts who would love the opportunity to own and race a proper ex-race car.
Of course, ex-works cars do make it into private hands. Sometimes sales by the manufacturer are brokered by auction houses or specialized agencies, but the OEM involvement is typically not known to the public.
Before they’re released the chassis are inspected for for safety. Components like the gearbox or fuel cell will be checked and a lifespan figure will be disclosed to the buyer. Sometimes, it’s not even a complete car, and it will be up to the buyer to source an engine, seats, or electronics.
With the Heritage Racing Program, each race car undergoes a complete, bumper-to-bumper teardown before being meticulously rebuilt using a combination of brand-new and reconditioned components. To ensure absolute authenticity, every build is guided by original homologation papers, engineering notes, and photographs directly from the project’s development team.
These won’t necessarily be 100 percent authentic period builds. Updates will be made for safety and the electronics modernized. Upon completion, each car undergoes rigorous track testing at HRC. Buyers will be able to enlist the help of HRC engineers to provide trackside support and competition guidance as well.
The first car to be offered under this program will be the No.26 Acura ARX-01a. Developed by HRC in California, Acura’s first purpose-built endurance car won the LMP2 class at its inaugural race, that year’s 12 Hours of Sebring, and even fought in the lead lap against the LMP1-class Audi R10 to take second overall. Drivers with Dario Franchitti, Bryan Herta and Tony Kanaan manned the machine, and its 3.4-liter V8 engine put out an estimated 550 horsepower.
Another car fo sale will be the Acura NSX GT3 chassis 005, which HRC recently restored in its Lady Liberty livery. The overall NSX GT3 program brought home 38 class victories, two manufacturers’ championships, 5 drivers’ titles, and 4 teams’ championships across IMSA and SRO competition between 2017 and 2023. Chassis 005 played a key role in that success as the winningest NSX GT3 of the program.
HRC also restored a 2001 Reynard 01i for Zak Brown, head of McLaren Racing, recently. Brown had purchased the car from team owner Roger Penske, who had kept the car in his collection since Gil de Ferran won the CART drivers’ title with it in 2001. HRC provided Honda engine, assisted in the fire-up, and inspected key electronic components.
There’s really no one better to restore these cars than the teams that worked on them originally and the people with access to the archives of technical data. Honda’s program allows the cars to continue racing and hopefully remain in the public eye, rather than slowly rot in a warehouse until they’re only good as parts donors.
David Salters, president of HRC US, puts it succinctly: “As the builder of these race-winning machines, and custodian of the original IP and knowledge, HRC is uniquely equipped to restore them to their original form, ensuring they can return to historic racing competition authentically and ready to be enjoyed by our customers and fans.”
Taking a step back, Salters said of the bigger picture, “Classic race cars never die, their myth and aura just grow and the HRC Heritage Racing Program is all about keeping our incredible Honda and Acura race cars doing what they were born to do — race.” It’s a first-of-its-kind program for a Japanese carmaker, and hopefully others will follow suit.
