By Backlicker

For some reason, I never get to drive cars under normal conditions. Where most of our reviews are done on the open road and we get to see how the car is under day-to-day use, I only got to drive this car on a closed course. The advantage is, I could see what this car could really do.

The first thing you notice when you try to drive an S2000 is that it won’t start. The key turns and then it just won’t. For some reason, the key is just the ignition, and the starter is a button on the other side of the wheel. Once you get it started, you stall the car, except you didn’t stall, and I’m not even sure you can stall this car. Honda gave this little creature a delay valve on the clutch, making it very difficult to mess up.

Track time is expensive, but Autocross isn’t. Though the S2000 is not the best autocross car at the moment, it doesn’t seem to know that. Every run it gives its all, which is quite a bit more than you would think. I managed to outpace a Shelby GT350 with that screamy little 4 cylinder. In autocross, grip is more important than power, and the S2000 has plenty of grip. I don’t know what the factory tire size was, but the owner squeezed some meaty super 200s onto it and now it bites down and stays in place. I tried to get stupid with the throttle and the break, I tossed it around a Chicago box at moronic speeds and I just couldn’t get it to slide. I was told going in that this car was notoriously understeery, to a point where it just would not turn if you tried to do too much at once, but this day it seemed quite happy with my buffoonery.

The trick is to keep the revs up as high as you can, because this car has no torque.

At all.

Despite what The Fast and the Furious, Need for Speed, Initial D, and many zoomer car enthusiasts might say, this car is really slow. What do you expect, its a miata. And for the 2000s, it was a damn good miata. At that time it competed with the MR2 and the NB Miata, cars that made a bit more than half the power. It would be years until Mazda introduced a next generation Miata that could actually compete with the S2000, and even the current generation has yet to make comparable power. The flaw in the S2000 was also its downfall, it was really expensive. Period pricing would put it in a similar pricing bracket to Mustangs and Camaros, cars that might not have been faster, but sure were flashier. And they were cheaper to produce, as Honda didn’t have a wealth of front-engine, RWD, Roadster bits in the parts bin. Designing and building a transmission that only works on one car makes things a lot more expensive for everyone.

To get this thing moving at sporty speeds, you need to launch from about 3k, and then you wait. Once the motor spools up to about 6k, VTEC kicks in and the S2000 reminds you why it is an iconic Japanese sports car. The good news is, there’s still plenty of tac after, this cursed thing revs to 9,000 rpm. And you are going to need to use all of it. With how little torque this car has, you need to keep that needle buried in the red, something that would be torture for most cars but the S2000 likes this. If you want to get the most out of this car, you need to match its vibes. And this car is just furious.

Photos by KJB Media