Key Factors
- Honda launches Heritage Works program to maintain older sports activities vehicles on the street.
- This system contains new and copy components, plus restoration companies for first-generation NSX in Japan.
- Heritage components shall be accessible globally; restoration companies might increase past NSX in future.
Honda is making an attempt exhausting to maintain its coolest vehicles on the street
There’s one thing magical about older vehicles. Whether or not it’s the automotive that you simply drove throughout highschool, the one your father took out on a drive on Sundays, or that nimble little sports activities automotive that made the twisty street on the outskirts of city really feel like a online game. For automotive fans, older autos aren’t simply autos; they’re time machines that transport their homeowners towards particular moments, reminiscences, and emotions in their very own particular manner.
Regardless of their coolness, the painful actuality is that sustaining these units of wheels turns into tougher for his or her homeowners yearly. Components for previous vehicles change into scarce, and costs skyrocket as provide dwindles.
That pre-OBD O2 sensor that failed? Good luck discovering one, as a result of the corporate that makes them doesn’t make them anymore. The physique panel that rusted by way of? Put together to mortgage your home for a direct alternative or accept aftermarket options of various qualities. It’s a heartbreaking cycle that forces too many traditional automotive homeowners to observe their beloved vehicles slowly deteriorate, or, worse, get parted out and bought.
Honda Heritage Works needs to maintain your previous vehicles on the street
Earlier this yr, Japanese automaker Honda, a model with legions of loyal fans, mentioned that it’s doing one thing about this drawback. In a press release launched at this time, they’ve formally introduced Honda Heritage Works, a complete program launching in April 2026 that’s particularly designed to maintain older Honda sports activities vehicles on the street for generations to come back.
By a brand new enterprise, it goals to sort out the components scarcity head-on with two distinct approaches. First, there are “Real Honda Heritage Appropriate Components,” that are newly redeveloped parts that exchange unavailable originals utilizing trendy supplies and manufacturing strategies. Then there are “Real Honda Heritage Copy Components,” which take the alternative method by utilizing the very same supplies and manufacturing strategies because the originals.
What actually units this aside from the standard aftermarket options is Honda’s new collaborative framework with authentic components suppliers and their willingness to leverage technological developments which have improved high quality through the years. This isn’t some run-of-the-mill aftermarket stuff; they’re actual, real Honda components developed by Honda themselves.
Japanese NSX homeowners may get their vehicles restored by Honda
This particular program will initially provide components and companies for the legendary first-generation NSX; Honda’s mid-engined masterpiece, which cemented the Japanese automaker as a formidable one that might tackle the supercar giants.
However Honda Heritage Works goes manner past simply promoting components. Since 1993, Honda has really been providing restoration companies for these vehicles underneath the “NSX Refresh Plan,” which is able to relaunch as Honda Restoration Service, completely in Japan for now. Honda’s facility in Takanezawa, Tochigi Prefecture, the precise birthplace of the NSX, is being renamed Honda Heritage Works Takanezawa and can function the central hub for these restoration companies.
Japanese NSX homeowners can have two choices. Fundamental Restoration, which focuses on the mechanical coronary heart of the automotive and includes engine elimination for inspection and components alternative, suspension work, and changing age-worn parts. In the meantime, Whole Restoration goes all-in, which includes disassembly of the physique to reveal steel, an entire exterior repainting, and a full inside restoration that features reupholstered seats, dashboard, door panels, and controls.
Functions for these companies will open in January 2026 by way of Honda dealerships throughout Japan, with precise restoration work starting in April. Whereas the restoration service is Japan-only for now, Honda says that its Heritage Components shall be made accessible globally by way of the identical distribution channels as customary Honda real components, which implies homeowners worldwide can lastly get factory-quality parts for his or her traditional Hondas.
Honda is the newest Japanese automaker to supply heritage components
With the introduction of Honda Heritage Works, Honda is the newest Japanese automaker to introduce a devoted program for its previous fashions. Hiroshima-based Mazda was the primary to provoke a program of recent alternative components, first for the primary era ‘NA’ MX-5 Miata and for the RX-7, which in addition they provide in-house restoration. As well as, Nissan, by way of its NISMO Heritage program, has begun to fabricate new components, together with engine blocks, for its Skyline GT-R.
In the meantime, Toyota, by way of its Gazoo Racing (GR) Heritage Components program, has provided components for numerous heritage fashions, together with the 2000GT, A70 Supra, A80 Supra, the AE86, and numerous Land Cruiser fashions, together with the 40-series, 60, 70, and 80-series.
Remaining ideas
In its assertion, it introduced plans to increase past the NSX to different traditional sports activities fashions sooner or later. Though they haven’t specified which vehicles are subsequent, one can assume that fashions just like the S2000 roadster, the Integra Sort R, and Civic Sort R are among the many following autos within the pipeline. Beforehand, in 2020, the corporate introduced that it was starting a copy components program for the S2000 and had fielded solutions from homeowners on social media.
In an period the place some automakers look far forward, Honda is making a press release by acknowledging its previous; it reveals that they’re dedicated to caring for the very vehicles that constructed their legendary efficiency popularity. In spite of everything, for the model that constructed its legend on VTEC, it is sensible to maintain the vehicles that created the legend for generations to come back.
Concerning the creator
James Ochoa is an automotive journalist who brings a technical basis to his work, having educated as an automotive technician earlier than finding out journalism at Rutgers College. Previous to becoming a member of Autoblog, his expertise included masking auto business information and Wall Road evaluation for TheStreet. His perspective blends hands-on mechanical information with a eager curiosity within the intersections of automotive tradition with vogue, music, and gaming. An energetic member of the native automotive neighborhood, he’s primarily based within the New York Metro Space.
