So what's your story with your S? Was it something you had been lusting for forever and finally found the right one? Was it a serendipitous find like mine? Maybe you had one (or two or three) and regret it so much you came back? Let's hear some stories!

 

I test sat an S sometime in early 2000's. I loathed convertibles, hate sun in my eyes, so was really only interested with hardtop. It was winter, and with my bulky coat on I didn't really fit in the car. Coat off it still didn't feel right. 6', 195#, sit extremely tall. I wasn't really interested, just I was there, car was there, why not.

FF several years, I'm finally reading to start looking for a new fun car. Wanted something rwd or awd, manual, small, light, with exceptional handling. Something that would help make me a better driver. It didn't have to be powerful.

It did need to be easy to work on and reliable. Simple, basic, but special.

I was looking at wrx, evo, S4, miata. Tried to test sit miata, but I couldn't even get my head under the roof. Like not even close. I doubt I could fit under if the seat were removed. Test sitting wrx and I had miles of headroom. But I loath understeer. The S4 didn't meet maintenance requirement. Evo I wasn't a fan of the fwd based chassis. What to do?

About this time I went to a family event (wedding). There I saw my cousin by marriage Kim. She worked at a Honda dealer. We talked about cars, and about my quest. She mentioned the S met all my criteria, and was a fantastically engineered car. She was impressed with the car. But it was a convertible. I told I didn't like convertibles. Then we talked about something else.

But her words stuck with me, so I took another look. Read up on the magazine articles. Looked at the forums. I was impressed by everything. Especially how overon the Z and boxter forums the talk was all about these catastrophic faults that can costs many, many thousands to fix, yet on the S forum it was all about oil wars and which wiper size to use.

So I started looking around, and after a while found the one. About three hours away. Drove it home, with no intention to ever put rhe top down. But on the way to the highway I decided to see what all the top down fuss was all about. I happened to have a baseball hat with me, and the sun wasn't too bad. It was kinda nice. Put the top up for the long highway all, and kept looking for the other two gears that just HAD to be there. But once home I tried it top down again. Turns out I liked it!

Now I'm a top down fanatic. Above 30 degrees out (and under 90 degrees), top is down. Its gotta be raining hard for the top to go up!

Man, I loved the car like no other. Never gonna sell this! Kim was more right than she knew! I hadn't told her. Was gonna wait until the next family gathering where I could roll up and surprise her!

Kim was killed at the Pulse nightclub attack in Orlando. She was a bouncer, one of the first ones shot.

 

Kind of like a coming of age story ,my 15 yr old son comes to me with his "dream car " Honda s2000 ,I remember them from the early 2000's
I start looking and can"t wrap my head around prices for cars with 100k miles and cant pull trigger on cars out of state without seeing them ,I become so wrapped up in finding a good car search online thinking of flying to Texas or Florida to buy one but that"s crazy .Right . Then I find a perfect 05 in the next town with 21,000 miles never crashes or molested bone stock never in the rain PERFECT!!! in every aspect and buy it pay a little more than I wanted but no shipping ect.... bring car home and go over every inch of car every fluid, I immerse myself in this car start driving it and love,love ,love it in the next year my wife and I drive the car every chance we get like teenagers I put 5k miles on it and its my baby . this past August son gets licence and time to turn car over to him he drove it with a permit for the last year now all alone . Ugg I cringe every time he drives away in it Rubber ,metal ,plastic I tell myself . Now most will say your crazy to give a perfect S2k to a new teen driver and I am, I have had many cars in my 35 years of driving mostly Sports cars but you never forget your first a 1985 alfa romero GTV6 in my case . I loved that car the way I hope he looks back on this one for him and again I gave him a 15 year old Honda
not so crazy is it.....

 

Friend of mine through autocross was selling his (was STR but he had put it back to stock to sell). He mentioned it to me during a course walk and I said I was definitely not looking to buy a car right then, but did think they were cool even though I had never driven one. He told me to come buy and take it for a spin, didnt matter that I was not buying it. He said it would be a good chance for me to drive one before he sold it. My wife and I took it for a spin. When we were pulling it back into his garage she looked at me and said "you are going to buy this thing arent you?" ......... "yep!" Told him to pull down the ad and I would buy it from him. Thats pretty much the story. Ran B-Street locally that year and had first place locked until final runs of the final event and ended up in 2nd :P Was sitting there looking at it in the garage over that winter and made the decision to go STR and ordered a pile of parts for that build and its been that way ever since.

 

"Did you see the new Honda S2000 just came out? Dealers marking them up $10K."
I called dealerships to see if any available and how much. All asking $10K.
Repeat for next 3 or 4 weeks until one local dealer said he had a black one coming in and will sell it for $6K over.
"I'll buy it." No test drive. Sight unseen. Car was and is perfect.

 

Oh man i love threads like this. heres my story.

When these cars were announced in 1999 i was right about to get my license. I had been previously drooling over cars such as the MR2, Eclipse GST (which i eventually got to own later down the line), and Toyota Supra. I didnt know much about cars back them except that all those three looked super cool and i wanted one. And then Honda came out with the S2000. I fell in love immediately. I knew i had to get one. Fast forward a few years and all the rich asian kids are driving around in the ones that their parents had bought them and i was so jealous. But how could i afford a $35k car as a 17 year old making $7.25 an hour?

I ended up buying myself a 1985 Honda Prelude for 1300$. Great car.

As i grew up and went through the years i ended up getting myself in various cars, 1995 Honda Civic, 1995 Eclipse GST, 2013 Ford Fiesta. All the meanwhile drooling over my friends 2001 S2000 he bought in 2009 for $14k with only 20k miles (he basically stole from an old lady). Now you may be wondering, you've owned a decent amount of cars. Why didnt you just buy an S2000 and get it over with? Well they always seemed just slightly out of reach price wise for me. And all three cars were really beatup beaters. The Fiesta was a lease which required financial help from the mother so trying to convince her to help me buy a 2-door roadster was out of the question.

And then all of a sudden i hit a stroke of good and bad luck. The good, was that i had some money that my grandparents had left me. A whole whopping chunk of change. The bad news, i needed to go into heart surgery for the 3rd time. So unfortunetly this big whopping chunk of change meant most of it was going to medical bills. I decided that since i wasnt going to be able to save this money and that life had decided to throw me for another loop, i wanted something good out of it. And so i made the decision to purchase a brand new 2016 BRZ. WHAT?! not S2000? Well i considered it. But i ultimately went with the BRZ because i had never bought a new car for myself before and at the time i cared about things like warranty and having the new toy.

Forward about a year and im fully recovered from my surgery. I managed to make some good connections and actually started making some good money. I was paying next to nothing in rent and i had all this extra money lying around. So i decided...why not. Lets go look for that S2000 i've always wanted. I picked up a 2004 NFR S2000 with 114k miles on it. The thing was...not the best choice. Car ran great, but it was on lowering springs that sucked, the AP2v1 wheels were powder coated white and the car had issues with the shifter and clutch cylinders which i replaced. 6 months go by and life decides to be mean again. My rent had effectively tripled but the amount i was making was only a few dollars more an hour than what it was before. So i made the sad decision to sell the S2000. I still had the BRZ and so for me it was enough that i had a fun racecar still. However ever since then, whenever i saw an S2000 on the road, it would always be followed with a long sigh and me saying "i miss mine, i want another".

A year later, i had accrued some debt due to more medical stuff. I was stuck with this chunk of debt that was really annoying to deal with. All of a sudden i thought of something. The BRZ is all paid off. I could sell the BRZ, pay off all my debt, and with the remaining money, use it as a down payment on an S2000. I didnt mine daily driving a racecar as ive been doing that for the past 2 years already. I decided to start looking. I had a really strict criteria this time since this would be my daily driver. Under 60k miles, AP2, Stock, refuse to pay more than $20k, all 10 VINS, And that if i couldnt find anything that was in that range i would just keep the BRZ and continue paying off my debt.

Well as luck would have it i saw an S2000 on cargurus.com which met all of my criteria. The only difference is that there were no pictures. I had no idea what it looked like. I decided to wait a bit as i didnt want to rush this process. I sent the dealership an inquiry and decided to keep looking. During the time i found some other ones, like a 2007 LBP with 70k miles for 18k. 10k over what i wanted mileage wise, but was also newer and 2k lower than what i had budgeted so i was considering it. Plus LBP is one of the best colors for this car in my opinion. All of a sudden the dealership responded to me saying they had pictures. They sent me pictures of a very stock, very clean looking Suzuka Blue 2005 S2000. At first i was like...eh...Suzuka...not my first choice. But i kept looking at the pictures and noticed something. The car had an OEM hardtop. NOW i was interested and the Suzuka Blue color didnt matter at all. Getting a 2005 S2000 for $20k with an OEM hardtop under 60k miles was a steal. Even if i sold the hardtop i'd essentially be buying a car with the specs i want for 16k. This was too good to pass up. I drove down to the dealership and test drove the car to make sure it was good to go. It drove amazing and felt amazing. Put down my deposit that night and drove home a happy man. Sold my BRZ a few days later and paid off my medical debt.

Now i have the ability to drive in a car ive been dreaming about for almost 15 years and ive been happily enjoying my time with her for the past 8 months.

 

I wasn't in the market for one either. One got traded in at the dealership I work at and I immediately went down to talk to the used car manager. I asked him how much and he said $500 over what they gave for the trade in. That was 10 years and 40K miles ago. I can probably sell it now for what I paid back then. Couldn't pass up the deal!!!

 

I have always wanted a ragtop. I was even considering a restored (or great original) older 50s era car (that was not TOO restored that I would not want to drive it or have it stolen) to just have fun driving the byways of California with my bride. Lots of research, however, was pointing me in the direction of the S2000. I happened to have briefly chatted at the gas pumps when another S driver showed up and told me how much they liked the car. I started following eBay and a few other auction sites to get an idea of how things were in the S2000 market. One car I was following was a 2009 RYP from a dealer in Phoenix that never hit the reserve. Month after month of no sale.

One day when my wife borrowed my old airport beater car, as her car was in the shop, she remarked that the beater was awful (1994 T-Bird that was originally her Dad's and was in decent shape-well cared for for 25 years) and I should think about getting another car. Bingo!

I contacted the dealer in Phoenix about the never selling 2009 and discovered the "reserve" was insanely high-well above market. I aggressively countered and they went for it as the car was sitting on the lot for 8 months (only one owner) I purchased it at book with the stipulation that if it was not as advertised or not as featured in the million images, the deal was off. In writing. Money was exchanged and almost all the paperwork was completed. Cash deal. It was 2 weeks before I had the chance to fly to Phoenix, pick up the car, and drive it back to northern California. The dealer picked me up from Sky Harbor in the S and drove me back to the dealership to complete the required State forms and tax stuff. The FIRST time I had ever driven any S was when I drove mine off the lot after owning it for 2 weeks!

Never looked back. 30K miles in stock, pristine shape. I found some medical records in the secret compartment (apparently secret from the dealer) that the original owner had significant cardiac issues and if he was still alive, could not drive anymore. I wound up with one of 38 RYP 2009s sold in the USA.

 

Looking for one for 5 years, there are only roughly 1800 left in germany. And i dont like read leather. And it should be low mileage in good conditon, stock. And i dont want to travel to the other side of germany to buy one. And the prices start to rise. Yeah...
I have almost given up, had fun with my del Sol. When you are a grown man and still drive a del Sol, you either have something done right or wrong in your life.

Fast forward spring 2018, my relationship broke up (She loved the del Sol, BTW), i had the Heartache of my life. Co-worker and friend said: "Look for a S2000 again!" "C´mon....these cars are so rare..and my mind is elswhere!" "Go and look for a S2000, at least it will distract you or i kick you butt!" Really a friend. Hmmmm...2 weeks later, one night, with a bottle of beer, bored... Looking into germanys greatest online used car market place. Oh wait... Stock, black leather, low mileage, price looks O.K....
Goddamn, go for it and bought it. You only live once. And i dont dont regret it.

And now for the Karma part: The dealer and the S2000 was located just 500 yards away from the appartment of my formely girlfriend.

 

***Reserved*** for Monday when have time to share!