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A Sports car's high performance, pursued as its major design point, forces the car to be as light as possible. Because of this, the NSX's body and chassis is build by making the best use of aluminum. This paper describes the development of aluminum for the NSX, and the forming and connecting technologies needed to achieve an all aluminum body.

Several processes, such as casting, forging, and pressing, were used in the manufacturing of the Honda NSX's aluminum chassis. For casting, a high grade method which utilizes program control of mold temperature was developed and put into practical use. For optimum forging, a selection of cold and hot processes were investigated and a process to save energy during processing was pursued. As a result, an overall weight reduction of approximately 50% was achieved.

The Honda NSX, made entirely of aluminum, introduces a concept of using chromium chromate as a method of chemical pretreatment. For other parts that contain a different type of metal, such as various parts of the chassis, a DACRO coating system as well as many other inventions are used. For the paint process itself, a new waterborne basecoat technology is also introduced to obtain a high-class appearance level for the NSX.

The PVC(poly-vinyl chloride) underbody coating was specifically designed for the automotive underfloor area in order to prevent chipping damage as well as the onset of rust propagation from a scratched point. This superior anti-chipping performance can also be achieved without increasing film thickness of the PVC by balancing film strength and adhesion strength. Also, by incorporating plastic balloons in the PVC formulation, a dried film specific gravity of less than 1.0 is achieved, and consequently a 2 kg weight reduction becomes possible when compared to conventional materials used for underbody coating.