"Pedal around town isn't as nice as the 918's—more binary, with more stiction—which is only relevant because the Acura feels more evolved than the 918 in so many ways." Oh yes. The million-dollar Porsche hybrid hypercar. The NSX is like a better version of it. Not as quick, obviously, but no man would wish it quicker on these Kentucky two-lanes.

Receiving eight of the available 10 votes, the Acura NSX became the most universally acclaimed automobile in PCOTY history, and justifiably so.

Its predecessor merely changed the supercar game in the perpetuity by proving that anvil-like reliability and the ecstatic revelation of exotic performance could coexist in a single value-priced sports. This one promises to do much more than that.

For the first time in a hybrid automobile of any price or capability, technology has been placed firmly in the service of emotional involvement rather than in place of it

Able to compete on level ground with the absolute cream of the conventional crop, the NSX also represents a brilliant basis for the ongoing development–indeed, the ongoing existence–of the performance automobile. To drive it for 10 laps on track is to permanently shed any worries that the next generation of supercars will be overpowered takes on a Prius; to experience it on a fast road is to be reassured that tomorrow's technology will be accessible and enjoyable. For that achievement alone, the NSX deserves to be our PCOTY, but the fact that it does it all so well, right now, places it beyond argument. The NSX works, but it also knows how to play. Confident and capable, thrilling on both road and track, the Acura NSX is our 2017 Performance Car of the Year.

Our man from England, Chris Chilton, damns it with faint praise: "Huge pace, but no noise. The fact that people were actually complimenting the radio speaks, literally, volumes."

Receiving eight of the available 10 votes, the Acura NSX became the most universally acclaimed automobile in PCOTY history, and justifiably so. Its predecessor merely changed the supercar game in the perpetuity by proving that anvil-like reliability and the ecstatic revelation of exotic performance could coexist in a single value-priced sports. This one promises to do much more than that.

The million-dollar Porsche hybrid hypercar. The NSX is like a better version of it.

MARYSVILLE, OHIO–We're watching a ballet of industrial engineering at Acura's Performance Manufacturing Center. Articulating-robot MIG welders dance along subassemblies. Workers in white lab coats carefully fasten parts to space frames starting each bolt by hand so as not to cross-thread the soft aluminum. Body panels, pegged to a rack like pieces of a life-size model kit, glide through a glass-walled paint booth. It all looks premeditated, perfect. But our tour guides, the leaders in developing the new Acura NSX, assure us with tired smiles that the path to the 2017 Road & Track Performance Car of the Year award did not always follow a tidy plan.

"At several points, the team's engineers asked me, 'Do you know whether it's going to work?'" recalls Clement D'Souza, who directed the manufacturing effort. "My answer was no."

Four years ago, Honda's then president, Takanobu Ito, revealed the NSX concept to much applause at the Detroit auto show and announced it would at long last be brought to market. He added that the supercar, the pride of Japan's most revered engineering firm, would be developed and built in the United States. There was a moment of stunned silence, then more clapping. People from Honda R&D, who'd made the short trip from Ohio, shared the elation but felt something else.

"Suddenly a thousand pounds were sitting on top of our shoulders," says NSX vehicle performance development leader Jason Widmer.

...

(Klaus hints there will be a version with less electrification and even higher performance.)