Review | Honda S2000 | In Memoriam

if you're an automotive enthusiast like me chances are you've dreamed of owning certain cars or just driving them and I've been lucky enough in my life to have done both but recently I've learned something major and that is most of these cars are disposable in fact a lot of them that people get all excited about will be forgotten in probably five years now take a look at this an s2000 this is my fourth one and I'm at the place where I believe this is going to be one of those rare Japanese classics now there's a ton of bad things about this car and there's also some extremely delightful things and instead of talking about the floor mats or the exhaust tips I'm gonna go into to what I think is a pretty exhaustive review so get ready [Music] now to fully appreciate the s2000 you need to have a bit of a history lesson and I'm not gonna go off the deep end if you're a motorcycle fanatic or you've been around the block you'll know that Honda has been widely regarded as one of the better engine manufacturers in the world that is if you ignore some of their modern snafus of course but the s2000 is a celebration of their golden age of design back when they were married to McLaren during the late 80s and their glory days of Formula one where Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna were battling it out now this vehicle is inspired and celebrated from the days of the mp4 4 and the mp4 5 race car in 1994 right around the time of Ayrton Senna's death Honda released the SSM open concept which was the foundation for this vehicle they quickly assigned Shigure Uyehara to the project as chief engineer he was also the chief engineer on the original NSX he had the opportunity to work with Honda's Formula One team and even Ayrton Senna to help evolve the suspension design and the dynamics of that car so when he got his hands on this one of the key things that that team wanted to do was make it an uncompromised drivers car some of the things that they had to do on the NSX making it more accessible to certain people they did not bother with this they wanted a open feel they wanted a pure connection to the driver and that was kind of the foundation of this car from front to back in 1999 Honda released this as a 2000 model the s2000 with a 2 liter naturally aspirated motor this was everything packaged together to celebrate everything that they've achieved in a street package it had long sweeping lines a long front end some people said it looked way too feminine which is why you got this a p2 update in 2004 with more aggressive bumpers headlight design LED tail lights and you know they still kept the price right around there four thousand dollars now you got a lot for your money spam Lee in retrospect to see what you get here but for the most part its aged well it depends on the color you get of course and how you've kept it up I'm gonna shut this door now since I've owned so many of these I can tell you a certainty that this car's biggest problem is it feels like a rattle trap shitbox when you're on the highway if the top is up it just feels like a very buzzy space to be in with the top down it pretty much all the wind buffeting and the noise kind of drowns out a lot of the creaks and rattles that you get from the top the plastics the the wind visor in the back I mean this is not a refined space to be in and I get this question a lot could you drive this every day and be happy and I say the same thing every time no I think you have to be definitely in a really good climate year around where you have sunshine and more good weather to really do that and there would be some changes I would make to this car to make it's treatable that way now here's the biggest negatives that kill this car for most people remember I said they weren't trying to make this accessible to everybody so if you're a bigger boy or a girl you're gonna feel like you're suffocating in here the steering column does not adjust it is fixed the seat design is extremely narrow and I really honestly I hate these seats and you would think well just replace it with another seat problem is as most aftermarket seats don't fit in here very well and the ones that were kind of designed for this car they want to bend you over on because of course they're a SM or Mugen seats and then you have to get seat rails from Recaro Japan so it's just a pain in the ass if you're not a smaller body type you might have an issue getting comfortable in here or if you just love the car you're gonna make the excuse for it now one of the best parts about the s2000 is driving it as designed with the top down it is amazing the open-air feeling and you hear the engine noise you hear the intake noise you just become a part of the experience now here's the thing while the top is extremely can again if you're a bigger person and you're taller because of the lack of adjustment when you put this thing up oh my god it becomes a nightmare in fact I'm not big but I feel totally uncomfortable driving it with the roof up you start to feel claustrophobic now I guess you get adjusted to it again but it's it's something to note if you're looking at buying something like this alright that's enough of that one of the best things about the s2000 is like I said it really is driver centric they want everything right here and that's also the joke of it it's a very me car but that's what you want from a driving machine the second thing about at least the 2000 through 2005 models is you don't have to press any buttons to get going I don't have to disable traction control three levels of stability control I don't have to switch it to Sport sharp and then adjust three different steering things No if I want to go kill myself that's all I have to do is just set off there's no nannies aside from abs in here and that's one of the beautiful things about this car all the controls are extremely simple there's no guesswork really there's nothing to do in here but drive now one of the biggest things about developing an uncompromised drivers car is you kind of forget about everything else and they pretty much have the storage in here is a joke your door pockets might fit a wallet phone the side pocket the same thing the cupholders are pretty much useless except for knickknacks sunglasses your phone this armrest area here is extremely difficult to get into and then of course the upper storage is that you know that's where most people put their owner's manual and then you have the trunk and the trunk is that's my biggest problem it sucks I mean I can fit maybe two going-away bags in there but you're not gonna fit a spare tire to go to the track or you know you're not gonna fit a lot of tools you basically have to narrow down your accessories to nothing and you got to decide whether you could deal with this as a daily driver really this is best owned as a secondary car now there's not much technology on the inside of this mm aside from the CD player the idiotic start button that you actually have to put in a key and turn the key forward to start it and then you can't stop it with the start button otherwise you'll grind the starter and then the digital gauge cluster which most people think is so cheesy and I have to agree I'm not one on pandering to the Past and as an explanation they just didn't put a digital gauge cluster in here for the cool factor it's a throwback to the mp4 5 McLaren f1 car and it is almost a complete representation of that and I'll show you a picture here well that is kind of cool again it just doesn't age well and that's why I bagged on modern vehicles for not sticking with just kind of classic design after 5 to 10 years this stuff just looks dated and obviously this is the same story here alright it's enough of that let's head into the shop and delve into the technical aspects of all the things that make this car great and not so great another Miata no no no this is a Honda s2000 2004 okay so I was it a 2100 mm you know it's about their 2000 rpms that it can take no that's the two thousand micrograms at or it has to do with the leaders to us two thousand two liter even though this no longer has two leaders to point to but anyway this as I said in the start is one of multiple s2000s I had and this was the second one that you've seen and molested yourself the I basically looked all over the country I decided I wanted now that wanted another one of these after I sold my last one which was a mistake and luckily the guy still has it and he enjoys it that's good he I just saw him at an autocross and I'm like everything's the same he didn't screw with anything it's just a good stock s2000 so I looked all over and I found one in Reno Nevada at a dealership and it was bone stock no accidents which is becoming a lot harder to find right way to do I don't know no this is a man's car it had low mileage like 62,000 miles in 2000 Honda released this vehicle and the first thing that people noticed was it had an amazing amount of oversteer and it had a serious problem with bump steer namely in the rear end and you drive this even now and you can't imagine them making a modern car that just would spin and not be controllable I mean basically I'd had a problem with snap oversteer so in 2004 the ap2 came out which is this car and they made some adjustments the first thing they did was changed the dampers and spring rates so in the front you have an increase in spring rates by 6.7% and the rear was decreased by 10% or 11% something like that the sway bars were changed as well of course to accommodate that they changed the tire size from 16 to 17 inch wheels and the tire compound changed as well because Bridgestone was making the old so - and nobody used that so - and I'm sure it had a lot to do with the tire compound so they went through an re zero-five-zero or whatever 950 I don't remember what the tire was but it was a Bridgestone compound that stuck around for quite a while the next thing that Honda did what was that Scott slowed down the steering why would they do that people know how to drive well in all fairness it is hard to control a car that's already oversteer prone and then you have lightning fast steering that it just makes it worse so they knew this so the first thing they did was change the steering rack the ratio is different they switched it from thirteen eight to fourteen nine and they also increased the lock to lock turns from 2.4 to 2.6 and you know a lot of people complained about it I mean you just can't make any everybody happy never so now the car is a lot easier to drive they also reinforce the bushings with the steering rack so it has a more direct feel and people argue it still doesn't have a very good steering feel anyway now in terms of the suspension layout Scott you have in wheeled double wishbone suspension how come they didn't choose aluminium cost back in that time the insight had an aluminum body and it was in the same Factory and the NSX had aluminum components but I think to get to the because this was a thirty to thirty four thousand dollar car at that price point I mean you got a lot for your money but I don't think they could handle the aluminum costs so that's why you don't have that there is a lot of aftermarket support like wise fat makes complete everything it's like six thousand dollars but it's a race it's all spherical all everything's adjustable but the cool part about this car even though you have cast arms you have full alignment capabilities that's your dream it's it is quite amazing there are limitations to how much camber you can get that before it starts affecting tow as we found out but you have individual caster adjustment and camber adjustment on the front of this car which is really nice and there cam bolts and if you keep them nice they will adjust without seizing up the next thing you go into is the braking system and this is kind of a low point of this car unless you're just street driving if you're street driving an autocross these will last forever and on the track you're gonna have the argument from people that drive this that will say that brake rotors are so cheap that they'll live with them cracking all the time you know you'll get three probably track days if you know how to drive at a real track you'll get three track days before your rotors will explode if you're more of a novice you'll probably get five or six days before you destroy the rotors and the problem is there's no heat dissipation there's no cooling there are 11 inch diameter rotors and the calipers are single piston this is kind of a last generation design the brake feel and the ABS unit for the ap2 they did improve the electronics and the hardware and the ABS module and as they said there was more memory available in the programming so they could add the software in tricks some tricks from the regular the first generation the a p1 so brake pedal feel in the ABS logic is much more suited for hardcore driving it's a biased amazingly to get trail braking and I've never driven a car besides a Porsche that will trail brake as well as this car does into a turn in autocross you get deep into the pedal before that ABS point the car just rotates I mean it just rotates under braking on the track you can get the car to turn in under braking unlike like I said most any other car I've done in now we're onto the middle part of the car Scot and this is a big one the s2000 transmission it's notorious for being one of the best feeling gearboxes in the world even today it pretty much stands up I think in my opinion probably the top five I've ever driven and you know the first generation gearbox that was in here was one of the most finicky annoying transmissions you'll ever get into when it was cold it would grind for no reason and I'm gonna show you a quick clip here from a guy that let me use this a p1 video on the track he goes into the pits comes out putting in to second gear and that's what it would do all the time just randomly for no reason could be a combination of the slave cylinder design the synchromesh or the synchronizer design and fluid but for the ap2 generation they revised the transmission and the first thing they did was they shortened up all the gears first their fourth fifth was a little bit shorter I think by one percent and then six was taller they upgraded the primary gears brass synchronizer rings to give them a carbon coating which you can see here this is done to improve shifting feel and durability which it's had an obvious effect now AJ has done some video work on the ap2 transmission and rebuilding it and a lot of this footage you're seeing here is from him and this transmission and I've had ap ones and a p2 s this is still flaky sometimes it's super sensitive to fluid it's super sensitive to cold I don't care what you do you basically have to putt this car along until the transmissions heat up before it feels normal and even on the track you'll know when it's not happy anymore because the first thing you'll feel is a gear and a grind in the fourth or fifth and as soon as you feel that you know the transmission transmission has reached its thermal capacity but this a p2 transmission is way better than the a p1 and this is one of the big reasons people swap it in if you have an older car but it as great as it feels it has some durability issues and you just kind of have to be aware of it don't be power shifting this thing you know dumping the clutch it's all good bro touch it feel how good thing is it's it's crazy how hot it gets the second thing they did is they reinforced the transmission case for the a p2 and there's some other minor changes the slave cylinder also got a clutch delay valve and this was partly to save the drivetrain because people were doing 8,000 9,000 rpm clutch dumps in the a p1 blowing up rear differentials so people were very unhappy that they put a delay valve in here and I've driven both and I appreciate the delay valve because it's that extra layer of protection from driveline shock the differential is improved on the a p2 which we'll go over in a second but for the most part this is pretty much the best thing you're gonna get if you want one of the more reliable drive trains you get an apt over an AP 104 a lot of these reasons how they direct Bolton's the two of them yes alright Scott we made it to the back and there's I just can't believe and I think I started to say this to you in retrospect you know you see a typical mid-cycle refresh what do you think let's change some bumpers the taillights the headlights yeah this is so extreme that I it pretty much calls the debate of should you get an AP one or an AP two so the second thing or not the second thing but one of the biggest things they change was torsional rigidity it's up about 9% in the front and 10% in the back and a lot of it is they've added reinforcements and the bulkheads pieces to reinforce the subframe they reinforce the upper a arms and there's something some other brick cross-brace not anymore after you just ruined it with all these ricer parts you put on yeah that's right that's true the the next thing they changed was the way that the rear half shafts and the driveshaft are connected to the differential case to reduce driveline shock it just might be and I don't have an AP one next to me but it might be the actual part where the they're bolted together but again they changed that and one of the biggest things and one of the biggest weaknesses with the s2000 is they upgraded the rear differential which was considered to be glass it was probably glass because people were dumping a claudette and saying rpms so what they've done with the differential is the case has been has been reinforced by 40% and the overall strength of the differential is up by 20% and it's just different materials the way that they've made the gear set inside the differential is also different and you know with modern fluids that have gotten so good now back in the day you'd have to worry about which differential fluid you're gonna work at work with and now you know unless you're stupid you're you're not gonna blow this up and in stock form so other than that the last few things to note the clothing hanger is still here mm-hm the Helmholtz resonator to reduce boom enos and the to a pullet from that i could do a pull-up but i'm afraid i'll tear the exhaust hangers off so you know at the end of the day there's so much going on here to appreciate and the last two things to talk about in the back is they did Tran change the brake pad compound for this car because of the suspension changes they found that the ap1 brake pads faded way to click quickly so the Payette pads are more fade resistant they do dust a little bit more and the dampers in the front in the back they're not adjustable obviously but the rear had a piggyback canister connected to it for well to help with compression and the reason they needed the canister was there wasn't enough shock travel in the suspension because it is so compact and one of the reasons why it's so compact is the top the way that the top floor folds into the trunk space they had to lower the floor and then the fit of spare tire it created a more compact rear suspension so you have problems with rear compression but just so you know if you hear there's problems with the the compression stroke on s2000 suspension it's pretty much a design issue with it but there's a stupid convertible if they made it a hardtop like it's supposed to be well the whole concept of the s2000 was an open-top car so I would have loved to see them make a second generation with a hardtop hey but you know it's still pretty damn good for what it is mm-hmm Scott what are we looking at here got a whopper under the hood here yeah this is the tomayto 2.2 litre 'yes yeah a pure performance and this is what you get with the ap2 gone is the higher revving two-liter for a 2.2 that they've stroked out and made some changes to in terms of tuning it's a lot of horsepower for that motor for back in the day it still is a lot of horsepower for a naturally aspirated car this one makes 240 horsepower at 7700 rpms and 161 pounds of torque at 6,500 rpm that's some serious torques yeah it's serious torques and the biggest complaint is people wanted the higher revving motor they want it the ap1 was so popular because you can wind it out and coming from somebody that is driven the pants off these cars ap1 and ap2 including on the track this feels a lot more powerful all the time yes you can't wind it out as much but those extra rpms don't make up for the fact this has more grunt and you know we're only talking about ten pounds of torque or whatever but it's just consistent over the rev range all the way till you hit the fuel cutoff it's making power and the main reason that Honda did this is I believe for reliability they said that this helps to consume less oil and people say that the both motors consume a lot of oil all four of the cars that I've had this is the only one that has burned a little bit more oil than the other ones and a lot of it is because I'm wide open flat out on the track a lot more than the other cars were so you know any car you drive on the track like you're gonna burn oil it's just no physics work with engine design but some of these cars will burn more oil on the street than others and it depends on what type of oil you use as well the other things you're gonna notice the map sensor they've made a manufacturing improvement by putting a zip tie around it looks like version 1.0 yeah and it works so if you don't have the zip tie add one it's like three bucks from a dealership the next thing is the intake manifold it has a throttle cable for the ap2 still up until 2005 and the thing that they change with the ap2 is gives you a 10 percent heavier pedal feel in the accelerator and this was to reduce throttle inputs during steady-state turns because in the ap1 it was so twitchy to rotate that you just breathe on the throttle and it would you know help you to spin it out so they've softened the throat you know soften the throttle mechanically they've stopped in the suspension I don't know the throttle harden the throttle but the input well right but you can you can feel it even right here the spring tension I know it's it's just funny how they did things before you had all the software and 2006 they want to drive-by-wire the other thing is the intake design cone air filter and even today as much as yes it's kind of sucking in hotter from the radiator this is still a really good design for a factory air box despite how much space it takes up and really after that I mean it's just little tweaks here and there you know you have a low center of gravity because of the double wishbone suspension they're able to get the hood lower the engine is placed mid rear so you have this right there that is legit 50/50 weight distribution and with the adjustable suspension I have the cross balance 50% - so that's one of the things and one of the reasons why this car drives so good but let's stop talking about it let's get out there and take this thing for a drive getting behind the wheel of the s2000 and I'm gonna revert directly to a regular car reviews where they talked about the s2000 being full of all this potential that will never be achieved people make more about this car than it really is and I'm gonna say this it's not a race car it's not a high-end sports car it's not incredibly quick or even fast it's just one of those cars in order to get its full capability you have to push yourself as a driver if you're not driving this at 9 or 10 tenths then you are not experiencing what this vehicle is all about [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] now Honda has had homecoming events for owners of s2000s and NSX and sugar Uyehara the chief engineer has been a part of those long after his retirement he's shown up to them he does recorded videos to tell how to help owners how grateful he is that people still drive these cars and how special it really is and the driving experience and you don't see that too often in Japanese cars are pretty much any car anymore and I think that's one of the special things about this you know that Honda this was a special car for Honda it was a special car for the people that were involved in making it and it's been an extremely enjoyable car for the people that still owned it and cherish it now you know it's not gonna be for everybody and I'm not gonna kid you there you know you get into higher performance modern sports cars and you get in here you really have to drive it on a track to to understand why it's so good on the street you know I drove with Scott he's like I don't mean to be disrespectful but really this is kind of a waste driving it around every day it feels and it's same thing they said when it came out driving and every day feels like a civic you know a little bit souped up Civic it just has no torque it's got no instant gratification that a lot of modern four cylinders have with turbos or your v6 and v8 you have to absolutely whine the piss out of it one of my favorite parts about driving the s2000 is the open top experience and I said that on the interior segments of this car and there's something to be said with the engine sound a lot of modern cars don't have this high revving naturally aspirated sound you have to go into much more expensive cars to get this experience anymore and I think that's one of my favorite parts about it as well you feel so connected even though you're not going you're not going fast you get the sense you get this really high sense of speed in the corners with the engine the transmission the suspension design and let's talk about suspension for a minute the stock suspension on the s2000 was incredibly well set up especially with the ap2 the ap1 was extremely edgy and now you know this is more sedate this is more controllable and drivable let's say if you're using this as a feeder car to learn how to drive then you want to keep it almost completely stuck aside from maybe tires and well of course in alignment because you can do that with this car and learn how to drive it fast stock I've been through so many auto crosses with this car bone stock for years where I go and Massacre people with a countless number of modifications and they would come up to me and be like how is your s2000 fast like this and it has nothing to do with the car being fast it has everything to do to understand how it drives and the suspension is a little bit over damping in stock form you know it gives you that kind of bouncy feeling it's very reactive and it can upset the car over bumps even with the ab2 you don't have to oversteer the wheel you get almost zero understeer in this car and the same thing goes from any type of current turn you're taking you could take any corner in this car just wants to rotate through it without you having to overwork the steering and once you learn how to work with the rotation that's what makes this car so amazing in terms of rear-wheel drive and I love the fact with the 2000 and 2005 models all the way through there you don't have traction or stability control and granted yeah you can to one touch off on the newer cars but this is again one thing I love is the pure driving aspect of it and there's just not much else they're out there like it any more final thoughts on the Honda s2000 and believe it or not given the length of this video I've had to leave out a ton of detail and I'm gonna break this into three parts the second part being more of a buyer's guide all the things that were changed and things to look out for the third part is kind of my experience with modifying this car and driving it a little bit harder so you have that to look forward to if you like the vehicle and you don't like it well too bad for you now let's get into the pros and cons the pros are this has got to be one of the most reliable sports cars ever made you can go drive it hard you can take it to a track and autocross with minimal modifications and really not have that much to worry about and the things you do have to worry about our mostly remedy remedy through maintenance or just extra care the other huge Pro is this has one of the best 4-cylinder performance motors ever made and again a lot of that has to do with reliability and the other part is that it revs out and it sounds so wonderful doing so it has one of the best manual transmissions ever made despite some of the quirks it feels and drives like nothing else and you can go modify a bunch of cars you will never get it to feel like an s2000 and you know I look at this car in retrospect and I think you know there's really four cars or five cars that I really enjoy and they just stretch out in price the s2000 is one of the most rewarding affordable used cars you're ever gonna own besides maybe a Miata then you have to step up to something like a GT 350 Shelby a Porsche gt3 an Ariel Atom or a Ferrari 458 before they wants a turbo charging and this kind of combines a lot of the elements of all those cars but the biggest thing is how much it communicates with you you get behind the wheel of this car if you know how to drive it you know how to push your limits with it and you can stay ahead of it the way that it rotates the way gets through corners I you can forget about that it's not the fastest car because of the way that it makes you feel driving it on the street or in a performance matter and again that is one of the huge highlights of it now the negatives of the s2000 are pretty simple well it's older you know you can't get a warranty on it parts are going to be more scarce over time the transmission namely on the AP ones were extremely flaky the ap2 trans is much better but you just have to take some care to it do your maintenance regularly with fluid changes most of the updates they made have made it more reliable but the car has horrible aerodynamics and you can talk to anybody that's done any track driving and that's why you'll find these cars with huge wings on them ridiculous body kits and it really is when you get out on track the rear bumper parachutes the airflow underneath isn't that smooth it's just an older car they didn't focus on that back in the day so if you're not track driving that mitt you may not even notice that the second- is well the interior space you can't fit a bigger person in the car when I'm talking bigger usually over six foot or you have longer legs you don't have the adjustability in the car or if you're you know kind of blobbing out and you're just gonna be suffocated in there and you know again it's not the most accessible car and while it may be one of the best sports cars it's definitely not the easiest to own and that's the other thing this is not a car that is particularly rewarding to drive every day it's more of a weekend car and if you have bad weather well you know you're gonna want to think twice about buying this because there's other performance cars or sports cars that might put a smile on your face more to drive everyday without all the sacrifices of the interior space kind of last but not least is I've bought and sold again four of these cars and you're gonna ask well why the hell did I get rid of the original ones and I'm gonna tell you back when I was younger I honestly thought that there would be something better than this that came out I thought Honda would better this car I thought Toyota or Nissan or Ford or one of the other manufacturers would take this formula and elevate it and so far the only company that to continue being dedicated to that car or a car like it is the Miata Mazda is committed to that car they've evolved it they've re-engineered it they perfected it and they continue to perfect it in a company like Honda it's just a toy for them it's it's a celebration it's a trophy Hey look what we can do but now we're not gonna do it anymore and that's one of the big disappointments of the s2000 and one of my biggest fears is you have all the formula in this car you have people that are buying them for crazy amounts of money because you can't get anything like it everything is there the bits and pieces to teach Honda a lesson for what they need to do going forward with remaking a car like this but given their history with cars like the NSX the new one the cr-z and some of their performance attempts they just don't listen to the people that love their older cars and I love it has to do with the engineers that worked on it are all retired the management that kind of supported these projects are gone that the younger generations come in different mentalities and that's why we're never going to see a car like this s2000 again and while that's a sad sad reality of it it's also a great thing if you like this car own it take care of it and enjoy it for what it is a affordable reliable just fun and enjoyable car to drive above all though and I have mentioned this before please take care of us mm keep it by your side for a long time enjoy it from the bottom we were hard and continued to share the authority and legacy of the s2000 with many friends so the radiant of the s2000 never ends [Music]

Channel: savagegeese

Views: 501,207

Rating: 4.8658495 out of 5

Keywords: honda, s2000, ap1, ap2, cars, trucks, reviews, best sports car, worst, problems, diy, buyers guide, help, good cheap affordable, used cars, Mazda, mx5, miata, ND, 2019, Porsche, Cayman, Boxter, BMW, RX8, Mazda3, mods, nsx, shigeru

Id: wNPj4InNEDw

Length: 37min 20sec (2240 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 09 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/RodRAEG]

And on this day the Honda S2000 was made, and it was good, but like all good things it was not to last. For while it was good, the "enthusiasts" cried of how little power you got for your money and that it would be great if it was less than $10k and had more storage. Their walmart mentality would prove to be the S2000's undoing, as Honda would only make things if people bought them, and the S2000 was no exception. Its production was ceased, leaving fanboys with new material, the complaint of "being too expensive" now replaced by "why don't they make cars like this anymore," never realizing they are the cancer of the dedicated sports car, their tumors the shape of hot hatches.

[u/notashaolinmonk]

This is peak Savagegeese

[u/memphisraines]

That last statement by Shigeru Uehara... I don't even own one and I started getting misty.

[u/calmcalamity]

The end of that video... I'm going to go hug my s2k.

[u/ilovetoeatpie]

I just bought an S2000 today. How fitting :)

[u/Uptons_BJs]

You know, for the longest time, I didn't understand why s2000s were discontinued, yet the forums loved it and its prices are shooting up on the secondary market, until I got to drive one.

The car really only appeals to a very, very, narrow demographic. The guys who just want a comfortable drop top cruiser for summer road trips would probably prefer an a3 or c class convertible. You get a better interior and bigger trunk with those. People who buy convertibles as a fashion statement would probably take the Miata (personally I think they look better). If you want straight line speed? A mustang or Camaro.

The s2000 imo is really only the best choice for track rats who want a convertible, and those people are a tiny demographic unfortunately.

[u/NewToMech]

Part of this is probably me justifying not getting one, but I really wanted an S2000 when I was looking for my last car.

Ended up with the 124 because of practical reasons (I was having trouble finding a good condition S2000 that wasn’t marked up by someone assuming it’d double in price soon), but the more I watch reviews of the S2000 the more I feel I made the right choice not in 124 vs S2000, but in not getting an S2000 then happening to get a 124

It feels like it’s defined by “buts”. Best feeling transmission... but it’s a finicky transmission. Great brake feel... but it eats rotors and doesn’t have enough cooling. Honda reliability... but parts are starting to cost an arm and a leg (that’s a big one that worries me long-term)... AP1 is the quintessential S2000... but AP2 is more refined

It just made it hard to get a feel for what living with it would be like, which kept me from stretching into the “price gouge” range.

I still really want one one day though, maybe as a track car build where I can start with one that’s had a hard life already from an owner with no delusions about future value.

[u/guy990]

Holy shit this thread

[u/StaniX]

The first 30 seconds showed my dream garage.