Senna’s Honda NSX Crosses the Block in London Saturday, and the Lot Page Is Mum on Mileage

Lot 155 at RM Sotheby’s London Auction on Saturday, October 31, is a 1991 Honda NSX in Formula Red with a black roof, chassis JHMNA11500T000233, estimated at £500,000 to £800,000 ($700,000 to $1.1 million). RM’s lot page says Ayrton Senna kept it for personal use under an agreement between Honda Motor Company and the driver.

The page lists no mileage, no condition report and no modifications. Where the reserve status should appear it shows unrendered template text, so whether the car carries a reserve isn’t stated. The estimate is the only price on it. We first covered the car in August, when RM announced it. McLaren’s sale of five heritage F1 cars has neither prices nor a deadline. RM has a date.

What the paperwork covers

The documentation list is a warranty book, Portuguese ownership papers, a certificate of records from the Lisbon Automobile Registry Office, and a copy of a Honda fax confirming the Senna provenance, which RM says Honda Motor Europe has reaffirmed. We haven’t seen the fax. The registration is listed as a Japanese Export Certificate.

The addendum also says the car is titled as 2025. The car was registered in Portugal in March 1991, and the page doesn’t say what the 2025 title means for the buyer.

The import bond

The car is in the UK on a temporary import bond. The addendum says the bond must be cancelled, either by exporting the car on an approved Bill of Lading or by paying VAT and import duties to keep it in the country. No amount is given, so a UK buyer’s total sits above the hammer price by a figure RM hasn’t published.

The ownership history lists a May 2016 UK road registration, then a 2024 purchase in Nagoya and a return to the UK for the sale. The bond note doesn’t connect the two.

Chain of ownership

• 22 March 1991: imported by Honda Automobil de Portugal and registered as SX-25-59. Stored in Lisbon and delivered to Senna when he visited Portugal.
• February 1995: registered in Lisbon by Laboa Etablissement.
• September 1997: in the care of the Nipomotor dealership.
• November 2009: acquired by the owner of MSCAR Comércio de Automóveis SA in Faro.
• 2013: bought by Robert McFagan, who shipped it to the UK. Registered for UK road use in May 2016.
• 2019: taken to Imola for the 25th anniversary of Senna’s fatal crash, with Giancarlo Minardi in the driver’s seat.
• 2024: bought by the consigning owner in Nagoya, Japan, then returned to the UK for this sale.

None of the dated entries records when the car left Senna. He died on May 1, 1994, between the first two.

The Estoril link

The lot page ties the car to the 1991 Portuguese Grand Prix at Estoril, which Senna attended in it, qualifying third and finishing second. It also lists a role in the 1992 documentary Ayrton Senna: Racing Is In My Blood, and repeats Senna’s verdict that the NSX prototype chassis was “a little fragile”, which RM says led Honda to stiffen the frame by 50 percent. That figure comes from RM’s text, not from a Honda document we could check.

A different famous NSX, Tony Stark’s one-off roadster, was on Cars & Bids this month with the words “prop car” in its listing. Lot 155 brings a copy of a Honda fax and some Portuguese registration papers. Is that enough for £800,000, or does Senna’s name make the estimate look cheap?

Sources: RM Sotheby’s, The London Auction 2026, Lot 155 (1991 Honda NSX), lot page and addendum.

About the Author

Shawn Henry

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Shawn Henry has spent years writing about cars, and it shows—not in a resume kind of way, but in how he talks about them. He's the type who'll notice the weird trim option nobody remembers and actually know why it mattered. At Backfire News, he covers pretty much the whole spectrum: off-road trucks and trail builds, performance cars, racing, and the collector market. He's comfortable getting into the technical weeds, but he never forgets that most people read about cars because cars are fun, not because they want a spec sheet. His beat runs from classic and collector vehicles to overlanding culture, modified performance builds, new automotive tech, and the industry news that actually affects what ends up in your driveway. Mostly, though, Shawn thinks the best car stories are about people—the builds they pour money into, the road trips, the communities that form around a shared obsession. That's the stuff he likes writing about, and it's what you'll find in his work here.

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