I still remember the day Italdesign dropped that teaser—just a shadowy silhouette and a promise of a “tribute to an iconic car.” The office went nuts. My colleagues, armed with coffee and keyboard courage, started armchair-engineering the ideal donor. Some swore by the original 1990 NSX, claiming you don’t mess with perfection. Others banged the table for the hardcore NSX-R. A couple of mad lads even threw the second-gen into the ring—bless their hearts. I just sat there, swirling my mug, thinking about a car that most folks had already forgotten. You know the one. The red-headed stepchild of the NSX family that, frankly, is anything but.

That car is the 1999 Honda NSX Alex Zanardi Edition. And I’d bet my favorite BBS wheel that it’s the only logical answer.

Now, before we dive under the skin of that machine, let’s talk about the man himself. By late 1998, Alessandro Zanardi was basically IndyCar royalty. Back-to-back CART championships in ’97 and ’98, 15 wins out of 50 starts—driving a Reynard with a 2.65-liter Honda turbo V8, no less. The guy had style for days. You’ve seen “The Pass” at Laguna Seca’s Corkscrew, right? If not, stop reading and go watch it. I’ll wait. And the victory donuts? Completely unplanned. At Long Beach in ’97, only one photographer captured that first spontaneous spin because everyone else had already scurried off to victory lane. The man even gave us a new motorsport tradition without breaking a sweat.

So, when Honda decided to honor him with a special NSX, it wasn’t just a marketing gimmick. It felt personal.

The Zanardi Edition made its debut at the 1998 Miami Auto Show, and Honda wasn’t shy about calling it “a new level of performance and exclusivity.” Big words, but the car backed them up. Only 50 or 51 copies were built (serial number 00 was a press car, so the exact count gets fuzzy). What separated it from a run-of-the-mill NSX? For starters, the fixed hardtop roof. By then, the targa-topped NSX-T had become the default, so the coupe profile alone turned heads. Then there was that stunning Formula Red paint—a nod to the “Target” livery on Zanardi’s Chip Ganassi cars—along with fresh aluminum-mesh intake covers. The cabin got red contrast stitching on black leather and suede seats, plus a plaque bearing Zanardi’s signature and the chassis number. The first one, chassis #01, was handed to Alex himself and is the only one believed to carry a European VIN.

But the real story lurked underneath.

Honda gave the Zanardi Edition a proper mechanical massage. Lightweight BBS alloys (16-inch front, 17-inch rear), a tauter double-wishbone suspension with stiffer bushings, new springs and shocks, a lower ride height by 0.4 inches, and a thicker rear stabilizer bar turned the NSX into a sharper scalpel. The steering switched to a manual rack-and-pinion setup, saving a few precious pounds and delivering the kind of feedback that feels like telepathy. Even the traction control was dialed back, inviting a bit of playful lairiness.

Here’s where I lean in and whisper: the 3.2-liter VTEC V6 remained untouched at 290 horsepower and 224 lb-ft of torque. Same six-speed manual gearbox ratios. But—and this is a big but—the Zanardi Edition shed 149 pounds compared to the NSX-T. That’s like booting a small mountain lion out of the passenger seat. The fixed roof did the heavy lifting, though the manual steering, BBS wheels, thinner rear glass, and lighter spoiler all chipped in. The result was one of the finest power-to-weight ratios of any first-gen NSX, which Road & Track confirmed in a 1999 group test where it outran everything except a Porsche 996 Carrera 4—and even that was a squeaker.

What makes this car so achingly perfect for Italdesign’s tribute, though, goes beyond numbers. It’s the Italian connection. Zanardi, Honda’s engineering precision, and a machine that, in my humble opinion, was the most soulful NSX to ever leave a showroom. It was exclusive, driver-focused, and carried a story that kept unfolding long after the last unit rolled off the line.

You see, the man who inspired this car went on to rewrite the definition of resilience. In September 2001, Zanardi suffered that horrifying crash at the Lausitzring—over 200 mph, a sickening impact that claimed both his legs. I watched it live, and honestly, it’s still difficult to revisit. But here’s the part that gives me goosebumps: barely twenty months later, he returned to complete the 13 laps he’d missed, driving a hand-controlled car to a standing ovation. Then came WTCC race wins with BMW, followed by three Paralympic gold medals in hand-cycling by 2016. And since 2020, he’s faced yet another staggering health battle, though the good news is he’s been home since late 2021, fighting with the same grit.

So, when Italdesign teases a “tribute to an iconic car,” I see two icons dancing together. The Zanardi NSX already represents a beautiful collision of heritage, motorsport, and human spirit. If Italdesign uses it as their foundation, they wouldn’t just be reimagining a sports car. They’d be threading a needle through time—honoring a legend of the road and a legend of the heart, all in one sweeping, mid-engined statement. And that, my friends, is a tribute worth every second of our wait.