TEASED: Acura Ready To Reveal New Race Car

Despite being one of the smaller luxury brands in the United States, Acura has had a decent level of success in motorsport. The brand's cars compete in several classes and have won endurance races around the world. Today, Acura teased its next-generation car and said that it will be ready to compete in the 2023 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar GTP Championship. We don't have specs for the electrified car yet, but it certainly looks the business in the heavily camouflaged teaser images.

The ARX-06 was designed in Acura's Los Angeles design studio, where the RDX crossover was developed. The automaker worked with Honda Performance Development (HPD) and French constructor ORECA. Keep in mind that the term "electrified" does not mean electric. The word just means a powertrain with electric assistance, such as hybrids, which powers the ARX-06.

Rather than a skunkworks team or special group, Acura's production car team designed the car. Dave Marek, Acura Executive Creative Director, said, "The same world-class stylists that lead Acura production car design created initial sketches, then pared those down to several potential designs." The actual engineering then started. "Next we created a scale model, did aero and wind tunnel model testing, and brought HPD and our partner teams in for their feedback."

Acura's cars are as successful as they are cool-looking. The ARX-06's predecessor, the ARX-05, pulled a hat trick, winning all three championship titles in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship with Team Penske.

General Motors had dominated the Dpi class of the series, making the Acura the first non-GM car to take the title. Sweetening the deal for Acura, the car and team repeated their championship run in 2020. As a funny aside, the ARX-05's engine was based on the Acura MDX SUV's powertrain. The SUV also takes some of its styling cues from the car.

While the ARX-05 competed in the Dpi class, or Daytona Prototype International class, the ARX-06 will compete in the GTP class in 2023. The Dpi class, or Daytona Prototype International class, is the top class of IMSA racing in the SportsCar Championship, but it will be replaced by a new LMDh (Le Mans Daytona h) class in 2023. IMSA will call the class GTP, so the alphabet soup will be as strong as ever going forward.