Honda has been involved in every sort of two-wheel and four-wheel motorsport since the company was founded, from its first Formula 1 victory in 1965 to its current championship-leading IndyCar effort. More than 60 years in racing has left the company with a substantial back catalogue of historic race cars and motorcycles—and on Wednesday, motorsport arm HRC revealed a new plan to restore, maintain and support those machines for private owners.

The centrepiece of the initiative, known as the HRC Heritage Racing Program, is a restoration service now being provided at HRC US headquarters in Santa Clara, California. The facility, which is the same one that backs HRC US programmes such as the ARX-06 IMSA campaign, carries out complete tear-down restorations using original documentation and archive photographs. After the restoration work is finished, HRC also provides trackside assistance through its own team of engineers for historic racers purchasing the cars.

The first car to be included in this programme is an Acura ARX-01a, the first sports racing car developed specifically for Acura and the first in a lineage that now extends to the current Daytona-winning ARX-06. HRC says this particular chassis, which ran in SiriusXM colours for Andretti Green Racing in the American Le Mans Series LMP2 class, won its category on its debut at Sebring in 2007.

Honda may once again be putting its Acura-branded IMSA GTP programme on pause next year, but its racing activities in America are set to continue with a new IndyCar engine that will be fitted to the new IR28 chassis. And for buyers who want to own an HRC product without stepping into the price bracket of a historic prototype race car, there should soon be an opportunity to buy a frequently teased new version of the Civic Type R that has so far worn the racing division’s badging in concept form.