Acura NSX is the First Supercar with a Design Team Led by a Woman

Although it was upstaged somewhat by the Ford GT, the all-new Acura NSX was without a doubt one of the stars of the 2015 North American International Motor Show.

The NSX is credited not only for bringing the iconic Acura/Honda sports car to the 21st century, but also for being the first ever supercar to have a woman lead its design team.

Michelle Christensen, who also designed the (now discontinued) ZDX crossover and the RLX large sedan facelift, joined the NSX program right after the original concept was unveiled three years ago at the 2012 Detroit Auto Show, and led an eight-person exterior design team.

“They wanted an emotional, 3-D kind of feeling”, Christensen told Autonews at Acura’s California design studio. “My priority was to keep that.” That’s despite the engineers switching to a mid-engine layout for the twin-turbo V6, never mind the three electric motors that had to be accommodated.

Christensen, a 34-year-old graduate of the Pasadena Art Center College, said that, being mid-engined, the NSX was “one of the most fun proportions to work with”. Even if that meant the design team had to readjust in order to keep the cabin low and within a preset wheelbase.

“It gave us the opportunity to punch more holes in it and make it more exotic”, she commented. “From a styling standpoint, we were really excited to take it to the gym and beef it up.”

She admits that designing the successor to the NSX was a big responsibility: “With a supercar, the potential is so much greater that everything is magnified. It needed to stand out. We really tried to treat it more like a sculpture.” Christensen adds that the jewel-like headlights give the new NSX “a mean, aggressive, front-end personality” and that “the side intake became a really important part of the supercar’s profile.”

Christensen sums the design in one phrase: “Visually, we want it to stand up and kick ass”. Despite the dissenting voices questioning the first-gen NSX connection (yours truly among them) it does looks aggressive; just like a supercar should.