New Car Test - Honda S2000

21 March, 2003

Honda's S2000 convertible is simply an excellent sports convertible. Fast, smooth, exciting and great looking, it is sure to impress.

By Nathan Huppatz

First impressions are often the best, and the S2000 proves this without doubt. Smooth muscular styling and a purposeful, efficient sports car cabin, including red 'engine start' button, hint at the enjoyment this convertible can give. The Honda looks good, and invites you to look good sitting in it. Just the thing for that weekend blast through the hills, cruising down the cafe strip with the top down, or any mid-life crisis situation.

Sliding into the Honda's cockpit is a comfortable and comforting experience. There is no steering wheel adjustment for the leather clad airbag wheel. The two tan leather contoured seats offer comfort and effective support, without 'clinging' like Subaru WRX Recaros. The driver controls are located easily, with simple Tactile switches and knobs, air conditioning controls within easy left hand reach, stereo controls for the right. Very few storage compartments can be found, except for some small storage nets for driver and passenger, a lockable console between the driver and passenger shoulders (also for access to the CD changer and another small storage cavity), and some space underneath the seats. Hooks are present behind each seat, presumably for hanging a bag, but realistically, most people will have the seats too far back to find these hooks useful. And lets face it, this isn't the shopping car is it?

The stereo, with surprisingly clean and punchy sound from the split system, is located in front of the gear stick, in a neat cover. Driver controls are also located by the driver's right hand. The 6 stacker provided clunks and clacks when changing CDs, and we noticed the occasional 'skip' when listening to CDs, likely thanks to the firm sports suspension. Of note, the volume does not alter with roadspeed and noise, a more common feature in other open top cars.

The S2000 suspension is a double wishbone layout, with independent rear, offering secure and stable grip and handling even at fast road speeds, thanks also to a 50:50 weight distribution. Constant throttle cornering demonstrates this weight balance advantage, with very little understeer evident. On high speed corners, we did notice deviation from cornering line when braking, changing gear, or accelerating, as the nose of the car could be made to tuck into line, or push wide. Not alarmingly so, but noticable nonetheless.
On rougher roads, the S2000 can skip around a little thanks to its narrow track and firm rebound, but there is very little scuttle shake evident, thanks to the very rigid chassis.

Turn in is sharp and direct, but steering does lack some feel and feedback. The steering, although nicely weighted and enjoyable with a quick ratio at 2.4 turns lock to lock, still allows some driver doubt as to car attitude and handling when driving hard. Sensing the beginning of oversteer isn't as easy as we would like. Nevertheless, this is quite a minor complaint.

No complaints with the 2 litre VTEC powerplant set well back in the engine bay. From idle, the twin chromed exhaust tips at the rear of the car emit a refined growl from the 4 cylinder unit. VTEC is certainly not a new technology these days, first introduced by Honda in the early nineties. It offers a switchable cam timing point, around 6250rpm. Many newer valve timing control systems are much more advanced, offering infinitely variable timing on both inlet and exhaust cams, but still - this engine impresses. 9000rpm and 176kw from a 2 litre 4 cylinder naturally aspirated engine sounds impressive on paper, and is more impressive when you have the throttle pressed into the carpet. The engine revs very smoothly, and there is always sharp throttle response available. Peak power arrives at a heady 8400rpm, peak torque at 7600rpm. Don't let this fool you though. There is good torque available from 3000rpm, allowing the car to zip along quite quickly, even if you decide to short shift at just(!) 6000rpm.

The action starts when the hydraulic VTEC actuator kicks in, as the aggresive cam lobes come into play. From 6000rpm onwards, there is a noticeable kick in engine power, and engine note. From here to 9000rpm, the engine positively howls. This is when the S2000 starts to really grab you. Hurtling towards corners, engine screaming at 8000rpm, heel and toe downshifts with lightening precision just make you want to drive harder and faster.

Adding to the engine experience is the action of clutch, brakes and the superb pedal positioning. It all works harmoniously when driving fast. There is little hesitation or annoyance in any of these driving aspects. It all feels rather natural very quickly, testament to the excellent execution of design in the production of this little sports car.
Safety comes via roll hoops behind driver and passenger, and twin airbags as standard, although in reality an open top sports car is not a vehicle you would feel safe rolling over in!

Creating that open top sports feel is easy with the operation of the roof. Two solid latches near the driver and passenger forehead are released, and with handbrake on, and car stationary, the roof retract button hurries the canvas down in around 5-6 seconds. Fast enough to easily perform this operation while stopped at a set of traffic lights, to the enjoyment of surrounding cars. Road and tyre noise is quite high inside the cabin with the roof up. The S2000 does come with a glass rear window now though, as opposed to the prior plastic window, known to wear and age easily. Still, with the roof up there is a lot of material to create vicious blind spots. Some careful use of mirrors and headchecks are required to change lanes safely. Roof down, this isn't a problem of course!

So overall, what did we think? Well, for open top sports car enjoyment, the S2000 does a wonderful job. It looks good, drives fantastically well for a 2 litre 4 cylinder, and makes you look good doing it.

If you are after this sort of performance, then the more expensive Porsche Boxster or BMW Z3 (from around $74,000) Mercedes SLK (from $83,074) will be options. Other competition comes from the local Mazda MX5 turbo (from $55,540), with similar performance thanks to turbo charging, but big price saving, or a second hand Porsche Boxster. We would certainly consider the S2000 good value for money in this company.
The S2000 isn't so enjoyable as a daily driver, thanks to very firm suspension, loud engine note under load, and lack of load carrying capacity, even for shopping, but hey, these negatives are what makes the S2000, from $74,590 plus onroads, that much more enjoyable to race through the hills. Outstanding.