Thanks to the wonders of photoshop and the "ruler" tool, along with a few known constants, we feel that we now have a fairly accurate idea of the dimensions of the prototype that was spotted a few days ago being tested on the Nurburgring.

Some of the facts:
1) German license plates are 520mm in width, so calculating the width of the vehicle was pretty easy. That's 1900mm
2) This car has the same wheels that were spotted on the S2000-based mule a year ago. This S2000-based mule borrowed its doors from a standard S2000. Based upon the photos of this car, and the known width of the S2000's door, with the help of the ruler tool in Photoshop, we were able to determine that the diameter of the wheels is almost exactly 21.5" from lip to lip. This indicates that the test mule and this prototype are fitted with 20" wheels.

With this 21.5" dimension, a clear profile shot of the mule, and Photoshop's ruler tool, it's relatively easy to calculate the overall length and height of the test vehicle. Danielgr and King77 got slightly different numbers than I did, but based upon my calculations I came up with an overall length of around 4370mm (172 inches) and a height of 1300mm (51.2 inches) )Updated with re-calculation). The wheelbase appears to be around 2650mm (104.3 inches). The previous NSX was a little bit longer, not quite as tall, and slightly narrower, and had a shorter wheelbase. Note that there are likely to be some errors in our calculations, but the ratios should all be pretty close, so if we miscalculated the wheelsize, then the numbers will skew one way or the other. If we're off on our numbers, we're guessing it's on the high side - the real car could be smaller than these figures indicate.

The following chart compares our estimated dimensions of the prototype to the 2004 NSX, 2009 GT-R, 2008 Porsche 911 GT2, and 2008 Corvette.

Uh-oh. Did somebody say Nurburgring Laptime?

In other news sure to generate some foaming at the keyboard, several bloggers in the UK are reporting that a spy shooter timed this prototype lapping the 'Ring in 7min 37 sec. In traffic. Gosh, I can hardly wait for the endless "but wait for the V-Spec" discussions (GT-R lapdogs, shoo!). For the record, we're really not all that hung up on laptimes at the 'Ring, particularly given all the variables involved.

New NSX does a 7'37" Already

Last edited by Jeff on June 19, 2008 17:49