Acura NSX underwater for 20 years, sold for $8,500

Article content

As the saying goes: one person’s trash is another person’s treasure — even if it has been submerged in a river since roughly 2003?

North Carolina’s Yadkin River quietly held a late-1990s Acura NSX supercar, which was reportedly stolen in 2003. Apparently, the NSX was discovered accidentally, while a nearby vehicle was being extracted from the the river while investigating a 2019 murder case.

Now, a brave soul in Maryland has shelled out US$8,500 for the rights to it with plans to revive the car.

Article content

The pictures, originally posted by Becca Nicole Johnson on Facebook, are…well, happy and sad. Sad in that the interior is likely trash; happy that the shell has held up pretty well, thanks to aluminium materials. Johnson’s post had well over 600 shares as of writing, in which she explains the situation after speaking to the owner of the facility.

“The gentleman explained the condition of the vehicle is far too gone to attempt to restore with exterior damage, interior damage, motor gone, windows busted, and the list goes on…” she wrote on the Facebook post.

However, that isn’t stopping the new owner, who beat out the other bidders to secure the NSX. According to Johnson’s updated post, “It’s been stated the new owners are going to try and restore!” Johnson went a step further by putting the new owner, Jay Bozeman, a co-founder at Helix Auto Works, in contact with media outlets.

He told Road & Track, “It’s pretty saveable except for all the obvious stuff like, the engine’s probably trashed, the transmission’s probably trashed, wiring’s probably trashed, but the body panels are all aluminum so they’re not going to rust. There’s some damage that occurred after it was pulled out of the river, at the A-pillar, but we have leads on donor parts for that.”

He also mentioned that there’s been no decision made yet on if it’ll come back as a track machine or see a full restoration.