WILL HONDA REPLACE THE S2000?

Honda has changed its mind about replacing the high-revving S2000, according to a story in Autocar today. It was intended that the current car would not get a successor but that could now not be the case.

It's started work on a replacement for the roadster, although there's a long way to go. While preliminary sketches are being made, the project has yet to get the green light from the bosses.

Were it to be rubber-stamped, an all-new S2000 would take some five years to come to fruition, pushing the showroom date out to 2011 at the earliest, although to produce a simpler update would be quicker.

What changed Honda's mind? We don't know, although the booming sports car sales currently being occupied by the Porsche Boxster and Nissan 350Z could well have something to do with it.

In the meantime, Honda said that the existing car "has been revised for 2006 with changes to aesthetics and performance. We're just entering the open-topped S2000's favourite time of the year, but it has already clocked up a sales figure of 366 units."