A Honda spokesman declined to offer details Monday about the size of the plant or how many workers it will employ, but he acknowledged that it’s not every day that an automaker pledges to build a new facility in Ohio. In recent years, many announcements about new auto plants have been made in the South, including Toyota’s pledge last month to move production of the Lexus ES 350 from Japan to Georgetown, Ky., a move expected to create about 750 jobs.
“It’s certainly exciting and unusual because the plant we’re going to be announcing on Tuesday will be building a super sports car, the NSX,” said Honda North America spokesman Ron Lietzke.
In January 2012, Honda and Acura first announced they would build the NSX somewhere near existing assembly sites in Marysville and East Liberty.
Industry observers of the 2012 announcement thought building the car in Ohio made sense. Honda has had three decades of manufacturing experience here. The automaker has been building cars in Ohio since 1982 and can build up to 680,000 passenger cars and light trucks at plants in Marysville and East Liberty.
The NSX will be powered by a mid-mounted, direct-injected V-6 engine mated to Acura’s “sport hybrid SH-AWD (super handling all-wheel drive) system,” Honda said.
The NSX is being developed by designers and engineers at Honda R&D Americas, Inc., in Los Angeles and Raymond, Ohio, the company said.
In January this year, Honda announced that it will invest $23 million to expand its Marysville plant to build the 2014 Accord Hybrid. That expansion will add about 50 workers for production of the hybrid sedan, which is expected to go on sale this fall.
The Accord Hybrid will be Honda’s third hybrid built in the U.S., and the first in Ohio.
And in February, Honda said it will move its top North American executives from California to Marysville. The move started last month and is expected to take a year or more.
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