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Review 5 of 119
Price Paid:
$20000.00
from San Leandro Honda Year / Model Reviewed:
2000 Honda S Summary:
Wow. The Honda engineers really knew what they were doing when they made this car. I remember the first time I saw one in 1999 I was blown away and didn't believe that it was really a Honda; I also didn't know how much I trusted them to make a rear-wheel drive sports convertible, coming from a German/English sports car purist family, but, eight years later, I find myself a proud owner of one.
This is the sort of car that a huge number of people *wish* that they had the carefree, adventurous personality to buy. Even eight years after its release, nearly every time I go out, the car gets comments, even in its somewhat-benign gunmetal grey on black color scheme (which I keep polished to a mirror shine with Meguiar's NXT). "Magnificent," "beautiful," "gorgeous," "hot," "sweet," "tight," "perfect," "dope," "hyphy (hey, I live in Oakland)," and the misplaced but well-meaning "cute" (usually handed down by middle aged women). We're taught that when we grow up, we need to throw away all those desires we have in place of things that "make sense." My last car, a 2000 VW Jetta GLX, "made sense" with its four doors, five seats and ample trunk space. It was a great car, and it saved my life in the accident that let me get this car. But at the end of the day, I'm in my early 20's, I'm single, and I don't have kids, so why shouldn't I drive this car? I don't need to move a couch every day and I'm not driving four other people about town or buying groceries for ten. And even when I am, I still want to have this as "dad's car."
There's a certain feeling that you get when you climb into the tight cockpit, unlatch the soft top, and flip the switch to move the top down, then push the big, red "start" button to the left of the steering wheel; if you at all appreciate cars, you'll get it. The transmission hump is high, and the shifter - with its extremely short, precise throws - is within effortless reach. The first time you take this car out and you get on to a freewway offramp where the posted speed is 25, and you take it at 50, and realize that you have only moved the wheel 30% of where it can go and you've got a lot more speed to gain, you've changed as a driver. When you take it out and you're racing someone and they shift and you've still got 4k of usable power left, no other sports coupe is going to cut it for you.
People who lament the road noise, the firmness of ride (I purposely bought the 2000 model because of this), or the lack of things like heated, massaging seats are simply driving the wrong car: there's a difference between a sports car and a sporty car. This is a sports car. An Infiniti G35 is a sporty car; so is a Z4, to compare it to another 2-seat convert. Both those cars are excellent in their own right and throw down respectable, even excellent, numbers in terms of acceleration and track times. But both those cars have aesthetically pleasing interior treatments, they're filled with pretty woods and carbon fiber dash treatments, they've got pretty-looking and functional GPS systems, they've got massaging butt-warmers and seamlessly integrate your bluetooth Blackberry into their sound systems so that you can have a discussion with your business partner over who has the best latte in town as you're driving from point spreadsheet to point HDTV. But this is a sports car: it weighs nothing. It has minimal sound deadening, and the dashboard has a surprising lack of frills and is centered around the driver (a friend of mine commented, after we'd been driving for about an hour, that she realized everything on the dash was in front of me, and not within her reach). If you talk on a cell phone in it, even with the top up, be prepared for lots of "huh?" and "wait, say that again?"
I had it parked in front of a Hotel in LA and had left it with the top down while I was chatting with some friends and an attractive woman with her boyfriend commented that it was "beautiful" as they walked by; they stopped and looked, and I jokingly offered that they could sit in it if they wanted. The boyfriend made a few disparaging comments about it in relation to his BMW 330ci, and I shrugged them off... finally, he asked how much it was and when I told him, he scoffed "oh yeah, I could buy one of these." And my answer, which made his girlfriend smirk, was "yeah, but you didn't." And that just about sums it up... it's the sort of car that everyone wants, but that everyone has convinced themselves doesn't make sense. You either get it, or you don't. Strengths:
Handling. Oh man, the handling on this car is sublime. I've taken it all over the hills up here in NorCal and down Highway 1, the 92, and down to my old LA stomping grounds where I took it up and down Topanga Canyon, Malibu Canyon Road, Temescal Canyon, Kaanan... basically everywhere that is twisty and has lots of dips. I'd taken these routes many times when I sold cars in Boxsters and 350Z's and all manner of BMW's, and this was a completely new experience. Never once did the car feel like it was at its limit; it always felt confident, stable, and eager.
The redline is surreal... it just keeps going, and going. The great thing about the engine setup is that unlike other sports cars, the clutch and the torque is managable enough that it's still a very well-mannered, easy car to drive around cities (I work in San Francisco). You don't dread hills because of the shortness of the shifter or that you're going to accidentally unleash 400 lb/ft of torque into the bumper of the car in front of you (ever driven a Porsche GT3?)
The wow-factor of the car is a shameless ego-boost. It doesn't matter that it doesn't sit on LED-lit 24's or have a $200,000 pricetag: the car has a magnetism on it that gives people pause. Everyone from little kids who have played it in Gran Turismo and Forza, to middle-aged guys who gaze at it thoughtfully when they walk by in the financial district on lunchbreak, to young women sitting in front of cafes and kids in lowriders... there's something about the carefree, adventurous nature of the car and its aggressive but understated lines that really arrest peoples' attention.
There's also, of course, the reliability. If Honda's known for anything, it's their ability to make an engine that runs seamlessly forever. After talking to people who have taken their S2000's over 100k miles I've got no doubt that this really is their crown jewel of technological and engineering prowess. Weaknesses:
The stereo is unequivocally the worst factory car stereo I've heard in a modern car (two paper cone speakers and a cheap, simple Honda CD deck) and it skips sometimes when you hit a bump... If you want to improve the sound quality you can have two more speakers installed into the plastic pieces behind the seat but that requires cutting, and they'll be muffled by the seat regardless. The clear plastic back "window" makes it impossible to tell if the car behind you is a Crown Victoria when the top is up (which is rarely, for me). I'm a tall guy (6'2) and my best friend is taller (6'8) and with our seatbacks back as far as they'll go, the rub against the roll bar... also, because of my body (I have a really long torso), it just so happens that most street lights on a two-lane intersection are perfectly obscured by the A-pillars and mirror. But the stereo issue can be rectified, and the other things aren't enough to detract from the fact that this is a really, profoundly amazing car. Similar Products Used:
I used to work in car sales, so, everything... Z4, Z3, RX8, the FD3S RX7's, MR2, 350Z, Miata, Boxster, you name it. The only thing that compares and betters this car in the sub-$100,000 range is the Lotus Elise or (drool) Exige, but it's a bigger step in the other direction from the above cars in terms of comfort and amenities. The handling on the S2K shames all of the above cars; and even in situations where acceleration is superior (350Z, I'm looking in your direction) the handling as well as the surreal-high redline puts it back on top in every track test that's ever been done.
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