Honda has just announced that this summer it'll begin construction of a multifunctional aeroacoustic wind tunnel facility in Ohio, not far from where the new NSX was developed. This isn't just any old wind tunnel for testing purposes, but a $124 million investment that aims to "reinforce Honda's commitment to developing fuel-efficient and fun to drive performance-based vehicles." At least one mainstream, non-luxury automaker still truly cares about driving and not just self-driving tech.

The wind tunnel itself sounds pretty incredible, as it'll feature "a five-belt rolling road system designed for the development of production vehicles, and a second, single/wide belt system designed for testing high-performance sports cars and purpose-built race vehicles." It'll have wind speeds of up to 192 mph. With such a huge investment, this is proof Honda is in it for the long haul for sports cars and racing. Considering the Japanese automaker's long history with both, it would've been a huge shame if that was all abandoned in favor of autonomous technology development, etc. We already know that Honda has been kicking around the idea of some sort of an S2000 successor for some time now, but no commitment has been made.

The Acura NSX, impressive as it is, is not exactly cheap, and we'd love to see Honda get back into the pure, although affordable, sports car game. Construction of this wind tunnel could be a sign of Honda's future plans. Even if a future S2000 successor has hybrid tech, at the very least it'll be slippery as hell. Performance is performance, regardless of how it's created.