(engine roaring)
- I love convertibles. I'll just say it, okay.
There's something about having the wind in your hair.
Just being like that much closer
and encompassing and embodying,
because encompassing is not the word, around you.
Tops up, cars are lame. Sorry, but it is.
Top down though, boy, are you in for a treat.
All right?
And I will put a convertible drive on a Friday evening
at 6:00 PM as one of the top five best ways
to de-stress and de-clothe.
I'm sorry.
Even if it gets a little bit funky in a 'vert, okay.
I look a little funky in a 'vert, but it looks,
it feels super cool. All right?
It doesn't matter if the convertible
is a Miata, an MR2, a Cayman
or that ugly Nissan SUV they made one day.
It's still nice.
You take a convertible, you pair it with the roadster,
thats sole intention is to practically whoop everyone's ass
on the street and with the reliability
from one of the best car manufacturers in the world,
and you get none other than the Porsche 9...
Not. No. Wrong.
I'm Alex, alex.fi on Instagram
and today we're going to be talking about
why, how and what exactly...
Didn't see that one coming.
What happened to one of the best roadsters ever made
in the history of ever made?
Today, we're gonna be talking about just what happened
to the Honda S2000.
(upbeat electronic music)
Oh, didn't see you there.
Even though I'm sitting here.
Photoshop me in the S2000.
Sitting in an AP1 S2000 that we're giving away,
that's almost over.
And if you're watching this after December 15th, 2021,
the car is already gone.
(explosion sound)
It's sad, isn't it?
Should've watched an earlier video,
which is why you should subscribe.
But anyway, it's one of the best roadsters ever,
because if you're watching it before then,
you can pick up a t-shirt and get automatically entered
in to win the whole car, plus $10,000 cash.
And we're making a donation to Reach Out Worldwide,
which is pretty cool.
(slow jazz music)
(alarm rings)
- It's Christmas!
- [Alex] Do you wake up every Christmas morning expecting
some cool (beep) just to be disappointed?
(turntable scratching sound)
Well, not today.
The 12 days of deals are here and they're live right now.
Now this year,
you don't have to get the same pair
of underwear and socks you always get.
This time, it's going to be gift cards,
merch, and maybe even wheels, tires, suspension.
But anyway, don't miss out on the 12 days of deals
live at fitmentindustries.com right now.
Happy holidays.
Let's talk about the sleek, primarily great convertible,
that is the Honda S2000,
and drop a comment on what you'd like us to see
or talk about next as well.
The most unanswered question in the automotive world ever.
That's what I want you to ask us.
Drop it, and we'll cover it in the next video.
The gray, that actually did come in other colors,
Honda S2000, was originally introduced
as the SSM model or Sports Sturdy Model.
No, Sports Study Model. Quote me.
It wasn't a four cylinder,
it was actually a five cylinder.
It had an elongated futuristic car look
that debuted back in 1995 at the Tokyo Motor Show.
And while the S2000 would gain a top,
and a little less futuristic design in the production model
plus a manual transmission because that prototype
had an automatic gearbox that would have been lame,
the S2000 would mature like a fine wine
into an actual production car, right before Y2K.
Now, the actual S2000 was a beautiful, beautiful car.
And it still is.
It's a two liter, 6-speed LSD,
and it claimed at that specific platform,
the highest output of a normally aspirated production car
for horsepower per liter,
until Ferrari came in around 2010 with their 458.
It took a legitimate supercar to pump out a 557 horsepower
to beat the reliable, the trusty, the true, the Honda S2000.
And even then, there's the F20C at 247 horsepower,
that was 123 horsepower per liter
with an 11.7:1 compression ratio,
which was the same as the 458.
Do you want to know what?
You're practically buying a Ferrari
when you buy a Honda S2000.
And while Honda had the love of the NSX,
the S2000 was the more realistic, more reliable,
which is kind of funny to say about a Honda,
but also more attainable sports car for the everyday driver.
Now, the double wishbone paired
with the electrically assisted steering gave the car
an incredibly well connected feel contrary to popular belief
and the 50/50 weight distribution because they decided
to put the motor in the right spot,
which is behind the front axle,
which at the time was a huge valid proposition,
really balanced the car out a ton.
And the quality just continued to come through
like pretty much every element of the car.
Honda had a really great way of making a car perform
very well without being too insanely expensive.
The interior was properly designed,
and I would argue the S2000 still is
one of the best looking interiors that you can find.
The electric soft top was fast, which was great.
The paint wasn't inherently terrible,
and the leather style console and digital instrument cluster
retained a style that prevented it
from fading as fast as its European counterparts.
You may not like the yellowish dash these days,
but the fact that the RPMs go all the way past eight,
is really exciting.
The AP1 or first-generation would ultimately
be replaced by the AP.
Can you guess it? Congratulations. You win.
The AP2 in 2004 that most people loved.
And production moved to Suzuka and had bigger wheels,
bigger engine, and some of the same great looks.
Now, most of the smaller items on the car
were meant to bring the car into the new generation
with some LED tail lights,
and they did some other carbon fibre pieces,
they did some two-toning.
They started to introduce some, you know, fluff.
It kind of helped out.
Now, we lost about 800 revs from the AP2 and from,
you know, the AP1, but we gained 0.2 liters on power.
Gave us a little bit more torque, same horsepower,
but a better band of power.
And it gave us a better highway driving experience
with the lengthened sixth gear,
which if you guys have ever driven in both,
you can really feel the difference.
And if you didn't know,
the second gen is a little bit better of a cruiser
for that gear change.
If you're interested and you need a cruiser,
I would recommend an AP2.
And what we all know the best things
in the whole wide world, the whole thing,
the best thing about this car
was all the awards that it won.
It was kind of like spirited away, winning an Oscar.
The S2000 will go on to win Car and Driver's 10Best
for 2000, 2001, 2002, 2004.
It ranked highest model in J.D. Power and Associates,
who I don't even know who that is
for premium sports car in 2004, 2006, 2008.
You want to know what J.D.? Thank you.
And it ranked number one in BBC's Top Gear survey,
I know who they are,
in '03, '05 and '06.
It won best affordable sports car for like two years.
Some U.S. News and World report decided
to get into car reviews. I'm not entirely sure why.
Jalopnik gave it 10 best cars of the decade.
Road and Track gave it the best overall sports car.
There was literally nothing wrong about
what Honda did with the S2000 and for the most part,
almost every single person loved them.
Even the engine would win awards.
The F20C engine was marked as the best engine
for its size category for five consecutive years.
2000 to 2004.
Name the last time you won something five years in a row.
You can't, because you haven't, okay.
Not only that, but it's like the motorsport king.
It held the tuning car lap records
at Fuji Speedway, Suzuka circuit, Okayama
and pretty much everywhere else you could possibly imagine.
If you get the old leaderboards,
there's an S2K hiding around in or somewhere in that list.
Okay?
And if you want to brag about owning a convertible,
your best chance to do so is to own a Honda S2000.
And if you don't want to get made fun of as much
for owning a convertible, you should just buy an S2000.
If you want a car that will blow diffs, like I get,
you know, go through Spotted Cow, which is beer.
Very good beer.
Get a S2000 because that is one of their weak points,
but you can figure that out.
It's some modifications.
All right. It's fine.
The car itself though, is a monster.
So, why did it disappear?
Why did it go away? It shouldn't have gone away.
It's not something that ever needed to go away.
There is absolutely no reason
this car should have disappeared.
And out of all the cars I could say, and we could say,
we wanted to see this year make a revival, it was this one.
This was the one that I would really like to see back.
But now I'm scared because of the Integra.
There's no way it would have been underwhelming. Nevermind.
Maybe we should just keep the AP1 in our hearts and minds
and just let that die.
Kind of like when you jump into a video game again,
because you have all the nostalgia and then you play it
and you're like, "This game actually sucks."
Well, first off, the automotive crisis and the recession
didn't help it much.
When you come down to what actually killed the S2K.
I mean, it would go from selling 9,700 units in 2002
to only 6,000 units in 2006.
And in 2008, it only sold 2,500.
And that's a pretty hefty drop
if you're trying to make money selling cars.
And if you look back at the S2000 in its inflated state,
the AP1 would run you about $55,000 in today's monies,
or a super equivalent.
So, not only were they kind of expensive
and declining in interest,
but they were also kind of expensive and not a focus
as Honda jumped into the mid two thousands
because they started to see the writing on the wall
that people were spending money on houses
that they couldn't really afford.
That's the problem with a lot of cars from our generation,
because when it comes down to really what happened with them
and why they took a hiatus for anywhere
from eight to 12 years,
a lot of them come down to the unrealistic amount that laid
onto the housing crisis of 2008 and the economic recession
that pretty much followed it.
I mean, particularly in the automotive industry.
People remember GM and more
getting a bailout and all that junk,
but to be fair,
nearly every single automotive manufacturer
got some sort of assistance,
got some sort of slap on the wrist for doing something
they weren't supposed to because they kind of,
sort of overextended themselves.
Regardless, and if it's a
national or international business venture,
because automotive manufacturing is so intertwined with
business and macro economics,
that's pretty much what happened.
But what made the S2000 such an incredible car
was the foundation that it was built on.
And really it's timeless looks.
The interior of these cars still looks better
than most new age sports cars.
And I can say that with 100% confidence.
The seats with the headrest cutout are killer
and fetch a premium price in good condition.
There's some over there. I might steal them.
The push-to-start was revolutionary.
And I even remember putting a push-to-start thing
in my Datsun because I thought the S2000s were sick.
It was a pain in the ass and it wasn't really worth it,
but it was still sick.
I remember going on eBay.
They were like 39.95, plus free shipping,
you'd probably still pick them up.
By the way, don't ever look at your first car builds.
It's cringy.
When you look at the S2000 community,
they're probably one of the best actually
at keeping these cars looking fantastic.
I mean, the Honda S2000 community has an excellent taste
and keeping that pro modification style is
I think what's made these cars look good for so long.
You also have vendors doing it as well.
You got Buddy Club with their tail lights,
Seibon with their carbon fibre hoods,
and you can get the remaining aero from across the ocean,
and it seems to always, almost always, look fantastic
and it doesn't take over the car.
It gives it a little bit more.
Even some of the OEM over fenders where people just wanted
a little more space to put a wider wheel with lower offset,
in the front or rear,
it still doesn't have much aftermarket styling
because the curving of the OE fender was just good enough.
They just wanted to make it slightly bigger.
And there's something to say about that.
When people supporting the platform
don't want to do too much.
Wings in the proper height
make the car look like a time attack car,
or you can just have Spoon do a wide body time attack kit
like Dustin Williams has and it looks fantastic.
All right. Either way, when you own an S2000,
there's hardly a negative side to it outside
of the transmission not taking to power the best
because they were kind of made with glass.
But a quick swap and you're back on the road.
And if you're looking to pick up an S2000,
I can safely say
that this is one car that will likely not depreciate.
I remember in 2012, they were like 10 grand.
But in 10 or 15 years,
this is going to be one of those cars
where we're going to say,
"I remember when those cars
were $25,000 as they sell for $90,000."
Just like air-cooled 911s, just like Integras,
and just like R33s,
because people don't understand how awesome these cars are
until somebody starts to make them popular.
But what do you think? Let us know below.
And if you're looking
for aftermarket wheels, tires, or suspension,
be sure to hit us up over at fitmentindustries.com.
I'm Alex from Fitment Industries, and we will see you later.
Peace.
(electronic music continues)