[Japanese Moderns] S2000, nice way to celebrate an anniversary



Bit boring for a sportscar, no?

Let's ride to another continent now, to Japan in fact. First shown as a concept car in 1995, Honda launched the S2000 roadster in 1999 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the company. The S2000 was name according to its 2L engine. The original S2000 was introduced with a 237 hp VTEC 4 cylinder engine, working with a 6-speed manual transmission and a Torsten limited slip differential. This roadster was reputed to be really hard to drive on normal roads : its VTEC engine was only delivering its power on very high RPM, such as 8000 or 9000, just like a moto. The sound of the car was actually just like Honda's moto.

Type S Version.

In 2004, several improvements were introduced to the car, especially a new suspension and lower RPM rate for the acceleration. The redline was lowered to 8200 rpm. A sportier model (Type S) was also introduced in Japan, using an aluminium hard-top and aggressive skirts. The car has been fairly popular until 2006, but then the sales started to fall down (essentially because of the car being older and hard competition of newer Mercedes SLK and BMW Z4). The 2008 USA car market crisis literally killed the car, with only 2500 units sold in all the year (74% decline), so the production ceased in 2009, and the replacement project was cancelled. It will surely become a classic in the years to come.

Any diecasts of the S2000?

Of course! First i got is a Maisto regular line one. Maisto's aren't recognized to do high quality diecasts in their regular line, but this one isn't that bad. I must say, tampos would have been nice, side mirrors are needed and the big plastic window looks really cheap, but in overall, it looks like the real car. It's a good add to a collection without paying big bucks for a AutoArt for example.

In the 2011 casting line, Hot Wheels released a tuned version of the S2000 that is really well done. With a wide body kit, huge spoiler, sporty rims and a flashy yellow color, it looks really great! The overall form of the car is well reroduced too. It was designed by Matchbox's member Ryu Asada. It makes me remember the black S2000 of the first Fast and Furious movie, and fits well in any collection too. The yellow line on the black rims really add a nice touch.

Enjoy the pics!