Honda S2000 GT 100 Edition
The S2000 goes off sale this year. PH's Matt Rigby enjoys a final fling
There is nothing wrong with the Honda S2000. It is an utterly amazing car - I would like to make that clear from the get-go. Many people will tell you that Honda’s wonderful, screaming, 9000rpm, 237bhp, rear-drive sports car is a deeply flawed machine. They are wrong - it is the rest of reality that is flawed.
The S2000 nay-sayers will tell you that the little Honda is expensive, liable to throw you off the road if you attack a corner with too much gusto, has all the torque of a week-old lettuce leaf, is blighted by uncommunicative steering, and its performance is inaccessible unless the driver is given a traffic-free country road or a race track.
In those respects, of course, they are right. But here lies the rub: on the right road (ie an empty, relatively smooth B-road), in the right conditions (sunny and dry), the S2000 is absolutely sen-bloody-sational.
Get the 2.0-litre VTEC singing near its 8300rpm peak power point, use the deliciously mechanical and precise six-speed gearbox to keep it there and you will have a ball. Do that in one of the more recent S2000s, and you can keep enjoying yourself when you get to a corner, too.
In 2004, Honda made various tweaks to the suspension with the aim of making the steering more entertaining and the tail less unruly. In 2008, Honda introduced an even less edgy GT model, with uprated springs, thicker anti-roll bars and re-tuned shock absorbers from the Japanese-market Type S. Now the S2000 is a much more predictable, less nervous machine; the edge of grip arrives in a much more progressive, less snappy way. You can even chuck in the odd 'dab of oppo' moment coming out of a roundabout with out fear of vicious reprisals from the rear end.
It’s aged well, too. For a car that was introduced in 1999, the S2000 still looks sharp, its unashamedly Japanese lines marking it out as a timeless design rather than dating it. The intimate, driver-oriented cabin is also pleasingly distinctive, even if some of the switchgear is starting to show its age
But, after 10 years on sale, 2009 is the S2000’s last - this GT 100 edition that we’ve managed to lay our hands on is a sort of perverse celebration of that fact.
The S2000 will soon be gone, then. But don’t remember it for its deficiencies - think of it on an empty country road, singing its VTEC heart out. Unfortunately most of the roads, most of the time, are not like that. Like I said, it’s reality that’s wrong.
I think they look great with the copue type room you can get. Never understood why they didn't make it an offical option.
I think they look great with the copue type room you can get. Never understood why they didn't make it an offical option.
It looks great.
I think they look great with the copue type room you can get. Never understood why they didn't make it an offical option.
I think it looks fantastic, with that.
I think they look great with the copue type room you can get. Never understood why they didn't make it an offical option.
(Hell, I managed it for 3 years and didn't spin it once...and I don't rate myself as a rwd god, only as someone who knows his own limits...)
The only reasons the old ones were stuffed so-often was by testers who pushed an unfamiliar rwd car with no TC too-hard in the wet on tyres which didn't like standing water.
Love the coupe-esque hard-tops...and agree they make the car look better than the Z4 coupe.
I found it fine handling wise - it's just that most people are used to driving front wheel drive cars with various driver aids and think they can buy a sports car, jump in and go fast and get away with it. I even found it good in the wet and though I did have a few moments this is no different to the E36 M3 evo that had no traction control. (A friend did put one through a hedge backwards though - but he is clueless when it comes to driving and should get some training!).
Those original engines in 2.0 format and 9,000 rpm redline were amazing. The gearbox was the best I have come across (close second is original MX-5), but the handling was tricky. Driving on the road was fine, as I just drove within my limits. On the track, in the dry, lift-off oversteer was predictable and hugely entertaining, but you had to know it was coming and get ready!
Now, I am probably the world's best driver of all time, ever (better than the Stig and Shuey's illigitamte love child ). And yet, in the driving rain on one track day, I spun the car 8 times. It was brown at the end of the day with all the mud! You had to keep the throttle in exactly the same position throughout the corner. Any more, any less, or heaven forbid any brakes, and it instantly snapped around.
Oh great, now I want to buy another one...
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