The Honda S2000 Is Still a Fantastic Old-School Sports Car

This is a 2000 Honda S2000 and it is an absolute joy 2025 years ago, Honda decided to release their version of the classic Roadster

sports

car, rear wheel drive, two seats, manual transmission, open top and the result was great and

still

is great. These years later today I'm going to review this S2,000, tell you what I love about it, and show you all of its quirks and features before we get started. Great news, this S2000 is currently for sale and is being auctioned live on cars and offers this S2000 is finished in a beautiful new formula red color, it has just over 23,000 thousand and is surprisingly unmodified and can be rear doors cars and offers so once you finish watching this video click the link in the description below to visit the live auction of this S2000 where you can bid on it and buy it only on cars and bid at the right time for the quirks and features of the S2000, starting with a small overview, so throughout the 1990s Japan created a huge number of

fantastic

performance cars, some of the most iconic

sports

cars.

The cars of the decade came from Japan and there was also a lower tier of entry level sports cars that were also

fantastic

from virtually every Japanese automaker, but in the mid to late 1990s those cars started to disappear and were canceled largely due to an economic crisis. recession in Japan, but also due to declining interest in spending 60 grand on a Mitsubishi, so Japan dominated the 1990s for performance cars and then it all fell apart at the end of the decade and then this , the Honda S2000, came out in 2000 as a We reminded the world that Japan could

still

make performance cars and they did with this one.

The S2000 was sold until 2009, but the original S2000 2000 was the most basic, the S2000 in its pure form. I say this because the original S2000 had a plastic rear window instead of the glass one that came later, very simple and basic, it also didn't have a clock inside, you know, your car has a clock, yeah, well, this one they didn't want to go pure and this car comes. from the 2000 model year, the purest of the

s2000

s. I recently reviewed an S2000 CR, the racing version that was made at the end of S2000 production. I also reviewed that the S2000 was in the Fast and the Furious movie, but I haven't reviewed a regular S2000 in almost 7 years and I've never done an AP1, the original S2000.

I love this car and thought now was the time, so let's get to the quirks. One of the first quirks you notice about the S2000 comes when you first get on it. inside and you go to start the car, you have a traditional metal key that goes into an ignition hole, but you turn it and it won't start, that's because this car has an engine start button mounted here to the left of the steering wheel. In addition to a snap-and-turn key, it actually adds a step to the process of turning on the S2000. This wasn't uncommon in the era of this car, everyone thought push button start was cool, but they hadn't yet discovered proximity keys to enable them.

The car already knows you inside, so there are many different sports cars from this era, including my 4D GT, you had to put the key in, turn it and then press a button. The next thing you notice when you look around this interior is that there is no radio. the S2000 was a basic car but it doesn't even have a radio, it's actually hidden behind this plastic panel that you push here and the panel door opens and that's where the radio head unit is located, but that's not the most peculiar to radio. Check this out, if you want to control the radio from the driver's seat you can just press the buttons on the head unit or you have separate radio controls here to the left of the steering wheel next to the engine start/stop button which takes us to Another Important thing about this interior is that it was intended to be a specifically driver-focused cabin.

This was a sports car for the driver more than anything else, the passenger was an afterthought and as you can see all things in this interior are targeted. directly to the driver and directly within reach of the driver, so the stereo controls are mounted there because you can easily adjust things without taking your hand off the wheel too much. You are in a difficult situation that you don't want to get into. All the way here you want to just touch something and get back to driving and that was their thinking and it's the same situation with the climate controls, as you can see they are directly next to the steering wheel and they are slimmer. to be just the most basic of climate controls, you don't have a wide range of different screens and options here, you just have a couple of buttons, a couple of dials, that's it, everything was intended to be basic, simple and focused to the driver and for A little piece of humor on the climate controls, you can see that there is a picture of an S2000 rather than a generic car that got there, otherwise there was no humor, this car was focused and the design interior is a clear test and then we move on to the gauge cluster that in the S2000 has now become famous.

This all-digital gauge cluster display wasn't a common thing to see in the early to mid 2000s, many cars had this in the '80s and early '90s, but the S2000 brought it back with this digital tachometer that ran all the way across the top of the gauge cluster looked great and then a big speed readout right in the center that told you how fast you were going and everything else was digital too, your odometer, your trip odometer and the temperature of the engine. and fuel gauges this very distinctive S2000 digital gauge cluster, an interesting quirk of this cluster, there is a button here marked cell, I guess for select, if you press and hold it, it changes your cluster to kilometers so your miles become kilometers and your speed becomes kilometers per hour, you can do it with the push of a button.

Now, one interesting thing about the 2000, despite its focus on pure driving performance, it had some nice creature comforts that you might not have expected, but it also missed out on a few. Obvious convenience items you'd expect every C to have, so let's talk about the strange creature comforts first - for example, there's cruise control, which is something of a surprise in a car that doesn't have a clock. It skipped the clock, but we added Cruise, tours. it comes on with this weird button right next to the gauge cluster and then you can adjust it using these buttons or switches on the steering wheel so you have cruise control in this car, maybe it's more surprising that you had a power convertible top frequently.

On performance cars the top is manually operated, you have to reach back and do it, but here there is no switch in the center that is marked roof. If you press it forward, the roof obviously raises automatically, quite quickly, and then closes into place. As you can see now, you still have to manually secure the roof to the top of the windshield, which is quite common on convertibles, especially in this day and age, you still have to secure it, but most of the process is done automatically, which it's good. comfort that you might not expect in a pure driving car of course, the same goes the other way around, first you open the roof from the top of the windshield as you can see and then you simply press the roof button in the other direction and the roof returns automatically into place and then lowers back down, it's a pretty simple system, but it's automatic.

It's also worth noting that with the roof up you can see that plastic rear window, as I mentioned on the later 20000 models they went to a glass rear window and here. You can see why the plastic starts to bend and then becomes cloudy. You can't really see through it very well. Most people who drive these cars only do so on sunny days with the top down so it doesn't matter, but that was an upgrade for the latest

s2000

s now in terms of traditional amenities Convenience items that most cars have cars and that the S2000 probably doesn't have.

The best example is traditional indoor storage locations. This car does not have a glove box on the passenger side of the dash. there's no glovebox there, okay, there's no door panel storage either, as there's no pocket inside the door panel for a wallet or other simple items you might want to put in there, which is a bit more unusual and the center armrest is in the center. console is not a lid that lifts up to provide storage, or those three items are the most common storage places in a car and the S2000 has none of them, but it does give you some storage cubbies in unorthodox areas in the center console next to the parking brake, you can see this little plastic panel, you push it and it opens to reveal, I guess, a kind of makeshift cup holder, but it's also a little storage pocket, if you need it directly behind the seats, between the backrest, you have this storage compartment.

If you open it with this latch, you can see that the storage is here and it also locks into place, as you can see, so it serves as an alternative to your glove box. Now inside this storage compartment you have a button to open the trunk. that's where the trunk lock is located and they put it there because this compartment closes, so if you want to give the car to a valet or someone else that you don't trust with your trunk, you can lock it so they can't get in, but with this open storage compartment you can also access another hidden storage compartment located here.

If you lift it up, you also lift up the wind deflector on the back and then you'll have even more storage space here in the center. This is a good option. hidden compartment where you can store things that no one will probably find unless they've seen this video and another interesting sacrifice for comfort in the S2000 comes in the passenger foot wheel where you have a pretty big hump, you just have to deal with it there, That's part of riding as a passenger in this car again, the passenger had much less priority compared to the driver.

There is a good example and another good example is the climate ventilation situation. The passenger has a single vent. The driver has two mounted on it. Cab-like driving position, angled directly towards the driver to make the passenger as comfortable as possible. There are now some vents directly above the radio blanking panel, but they don't move, you can't adjust where they point. That doesn't really help, the passenger only has to deal with his one climate vent, but it makes sense if you think about it. The objective was not Comfort, it was not to provide the passenger with the best luxury experience.

The goal of the S2000 was Puro. Performance, so let's talk about that performance when the S2000 came out in 2000, it had a naturally aspirated 2 liter net 4 cylinder engine with 240 horsepower, which was a huge number, a big boost over the Mazda Miata in that moment, which was the most similar to this car. analog, but it only had 153 lb-ft of torque. Now I remember I was 12 when this car came out and I remember being 12 or 13 and it was all over the car forums on the Internet. I was lying about my age. He looked older than me. We weren't all, but I remember all the other 12-14 year old kids on the forums were laughing at this car because of its torque figure, it was a little pathetic, it was almost economy car territory and because this car had 9,000 RPM .

Red Line and because of the way this engine was designed, you really had to rev it to be able to access all of its power and torque. That was one complaint about this car when it came out. It wasn't just a fast car. It was only fast if you really pushed it, it got up into the rev range and who really wants to drive it on the Red Line all the time in the city over the years? I think that's become one of the charming things about this car, but let's go back. At the time it was a criticism and Honda reacted.

The original S2000 with its 2L engine was only sold from 2000 to 2003. In 2004 they came out with a revised engine that was enlarged to 2.2L and the torque figure increased to 161 lb-ft. PB-ft of torque may not seem like much, but with the larger engine and with a few different tunes, the torque was available in a lower rev range, so it provided power a little faster and a little earlier. To address some of those complaints about the previous cars and how peaky the engine was and how difficult it was to get power now in the S2000 World, there will always be a debate about which is better the AP1, this car, the original or the AP2 with its size extended.

The engine that came after, the AP1, was the pure form of the S2000 with that Revy engine, but the AP2 feels a little faster, regardless of your stance, that's the basic situation, inAs for the engine itself, you can see where it is located back in the engine bay. In fact, most of the engine hangs behind the front axle, which really makes it a mid-engined car and gives you an idea of ​​the weight distribution situation, although the S2000 has a long hood and a long front end. , the engine is quite far back to make the car more balanced, which becomes tremendously obvious the moment you drive the car, this level of balance that the engine provides and, by the way, it's also worth noting that, Regardless of whether AP1 or AP2 S2000 is a model from the beginning of 2000. or by the end of 2009, the formula of this car was always the same rear-wheel drive, two-seater, open-top, small size manual transmission that never changed throughout the production of this car, now for other interesting quirks and features on the exterior. the S2000, let's talk about the badge, the only S2000 badge on this car was the one on the fender, you can see it on the passenger fender there, it was also repeated here on the driver's side, but it didn't have an S2000 badge on the front or rear now the name itself S2000 had a dual purpose 200000 because this car came out in the year 2000 and in a way commemorated the Millennium, but it was also a tribute to the previous Honda sports cars that had come out in the 50s , 60 and 7. the original was the S500 which had an approximately 500 cc engine, then the S600 came out with a 600 cc engine and then, all these decades later, the S2000 came out with a 2000 cc engine and it turned out that it also came out in the year 2000, so it worked perfectly.

That's where the name comes from. As for the overall design of this car, I've always loved it. It was a tremendously attractive car, well proportioned, very pretty from every angle. It was a really clean, simple, beautiful design, and it was so much more. muscular and aggressive than the Miata, the S2000 was more powerful than the Miata, it was more expensive and when you saw it on the road it looked like it was more serious than a Miata, this one had then and still has the reputation of being more serious, more centered. The driver's car and design was part of the reason.

The wheels are also worth noting, whether you prefer the AP1 or the ap2 S2000. I always liked the wheels on this car better, the original AP1 wheels. Now, as you can imagine, many of these s2000s were modified. People changed the wheels, but I always thought it was a mistake. I always thought they looked great and they still look great almost 25 years later. As for the rear, there are some very interesting elements here, for example the taillights always love to show off. on these tail lights with their clear lenses and then on the inside you have the actual red for the brake lights or the orange for the turn signals or the white for the reverse light component.

These taillights with the clear lights and then the normal ones inside were fashionable at the time. When this car came out, I think they still look great and are very emblematic of this period. One thing I didn't like about the back was the trunk keyhole that was stuck right in the middle of nowhere. It was stupid that it was so prominent when maybe they could have hidden it under the badge or something, but they didn't, it was always stuck there, right in the center, breaking up the attractive lines on the rear now as for the trunk.

As such, there are a couple of interesting quirks worth discussing here, an obvious one being this hump in the middle of the trunk which, of course, is for this car's spare tire. You take it off and the spare one is there, and it's kind of fun. to see the hump, but without a doubt the most fun element inside this trunk is on the left side, where you can see that there is a bag that says S2000. You're thinking what exactly is there, so you pull it out and discover that it's underneath. the CD changer, the bag is there to protect the CD changer and since the CD changer was hanging in the trunk you can also see that Honda built a cage around the CD changer, it came this way from the factory in case something was rolling.

Back there in the trunk, you didn't want him to crash into the CD changer and break it, so you have a C back there to keep him safe and protected, and if that wasn't enough protection, you put the bag on for even more. That's certainly one way to make sure the CD changer doesn't get damaged. Many other automakers just stick it on the side of the trunk and then put a panel on top, but here we have a bag and a cage, the latest interesting thing. What's worth noting about the boot is that it's actually surprisingly large, certainly not huge by any standards, but for a small car like this, a purist sports car where driving is the main goal, it's nice to see that it has some space in the trunk and even more carving. on the floor to look for additional items, you could certainly take this on a nice weekend getaway with a driver.

Focus, well, the Honda S2000, the original S2000, it's been 6 years since I reviewed a regular S2000. I did the S2000 CR a couple of years ago. 18 months ago, but it's been a long time since I've been in an S2000 and I drove a regular S2000 for a review and I have to say this car reminds me of the same thing every time I get in, which is if you're looking at a list of the best cars for drivers of all time and does not include this car, so that list was not compiled by a serious person, this car deserves to be mentioned in the highest levels of cars I drove to work today in my GT career.

It was amazing to get into this car and I think it's actually not too far off, obviously the GT pro has more power and more sound, but in terms of a pure driver's car this one does so many things right that some of the best cars with pure dryers they work well, the steering feel is absolutely fantastic, just, really, really, really excellent. It doesn't have the same level of precise IM mediation as a new sports car. There is a little play in the center, but you have an incredible linear feel to the steering that gives you so much control and makes you feel so capable when you drive this car.

The handling is incredible. It's one of the best, especially at this price of any car. The car goes exactly where it points. It's so small, easy to pull, fun and exciting, it's like a Miata in that way, I'm not going to say it's better or worse, there's already a lot of debate about that, but I will say it's faster, it feels so quick to shift steering like the much vaunted Miata and yet it is a faster car to drive and let's talk about that for a second, when this car came out people complained that you had to work very hard to have access to the power that It's true, it has to be done. work hard, but for me that has become part of the fun of the car, I mean, you just sound it and enjoy it, you know, back in 2000, when this car came out in the V8 era and that kind of things they were.

Whatever it is, we have all these electric cars now, we have dual-clutch transmissions. Power comes very easy in cars and in this one you have to work for it and that has made this car lovely, it's not like any car of this era is fast. modern standards, so unless it's fun, unless it's attractive, and that's exactly what this car is, you work for power and that's good, you can rev this engine, frankly it sounds pretty good and it's a lot of fun Do it and of course you have the ability to change gears in one of the best gear changing situations of all time.

Perfectly weighted shifter ball. Fantastic gear action in the sense that it's not vague at all, it fits perfectly into the gear but it's not too notchy where you're fighting it or you're running against some weird ridges like in some cars, the clutch is excellent EX, exactly the weight you want it to be and exactly the softness you want it to be. I mean, this car was simply designed by people. that they paid enormous attention to great sports cars and created a great sports car, plus the fact that it looks good, that it's relatively reliable, that it doesn't really lose value, and that it's a convertible, so you can enjoy it. an open roof has it all no wonder the s2000s are so desirable even 25 years after they first came out no wonder they hold their value so well no wonder the good ones have really fallen silent in value this It's an experience that you can't get in many other places and it's amazing to have the experience here.

I will say if there is a drawback to this car and there are very few drawbacks to this car, but if there is going to be one, I would say it is not the most special. The car when it first came out was like an S2000, now it's kind of mixed in with the normality of life like no one's looking at you like it's not like you wouldn't do it, you wouldn't attract attention at Cars and Coffee, it's not what I would do. Call it a tremendously special or exciting car that you wouldn't freak out if you saw one.

It's a great car to drive. It's a great car to be in. It's a great car to shift gears and accelerate. But it's not like it's a car that sets off. mentioned in a list of really desirable cars and as a result of that, no matter how good it is, I think it will never reach the heights of exotic cars or even high performance versions of normal cars, the z6s of the world, despite Which Frankly, from a driving perspective, it could be better, but they made a lot of them, they made them for 10 years, so this car will never like that wow feeling.

I can't believe I saw one of those today, which is maybe a little. A little sad for some people, but from a driving point of view, it's one of the best of all time and every time I get in an S2000, REM remembers that I love this car, and that's the original Honda S2000 , one of the coolest cars in its history. day and I'm still fantastic all these years. I love this car I've always had and it's always a pleasure to drive and you can buy it at cars and deals and now it's time to give the S2000 a Doug score and the Doug score.

It's here 55 out of 100, which puts the S2000 here against some similar cars. The ap-1 S2000 gets the same score as the ap2 S2000 that I reviewed several years ago, which makes sense since these cars are very similar. There are some notable differences, but no. enough to raise or lower the score by a full point, whether you choose an AP1 or an AP2, the S2000 is an absolutely fantastic sports car with one of the best driving experiences of all time and it's no wonder they maintain their Courage and continue standing. High demand even 25 years after its launch.