Honda’s Vision Gran Turismo looks like a baby NSX

OK Honda, we get it. You’re good – very good – at designing and building rather excellent concepts. This is the latest, though it comes with a hefty caveat: it’s built for a videogame.

Gran Turismo, to be precise. It is in fact, the Honda Sports Vision Gran Turismo, built for Kazunori-san’s seminal driving simulator. So, while one full-scale model actually exists, you’ll only ever drive it digitally.

The theme here is ‘human centred design’, which is quite weird for a car that no human will ever sit in, but those are but mere details when the design does indeed look fantastic. All squat, futuristic lines, like a shrunken NSX.

We’re told that in theory, the car utilises much carbon fibre to keep the bodyweight down to an impossible 899kg. A full 100kg lighter than – if you cast your mind back – Lamborghini’s Sesto Elemento concept, itself deploying much CF.

Into this carbon fibre mix slots a 2.0-litre, four-cylinder turbo engine with VTEC, mounted in the middle and churning out a very healthy 404bhp at 7,500rpm. No electric assistance, no hybrid gubbins, just a hot 2.0-litre motor driving through an eight-speed dual clutch ‘box to, we guess, the rear wheels.

Sounds like the very best recipe for a small, punchy sports car, no? The full scale model (a quarter scale one was built first) was also put through the wind tunnel – just like a real car, papa! – to fully hone the aero. This, says Honda, means the Sports Vision GT boasts optimum airflow around and out of the body, the underfloor and cabin/engine.

So, we get it Honda, you’re good at this. Now please make one for real.