Car Spot: 2003 Honda S2000

Sort of exotic in its own right …

If I asked you about a sports car that Honda made, most likely you would name the NSX. But there’s another, not quite as fast but a lot cheaper, the Honda S2000, this week’s spot.

The front-mid engine open-top sports car, introduced at the Tokyo Motor Show in 1995, was manufactured by Honda from 1999 to 2009. The automotive media loved it.

Car and Driver said, “It has the stuff sports-car fantasies are made of: a front-engine, rear-drive layout; a six-speed, close-ratio manual transmission; an unequal-length control-arm suspension all around; disc brakes; and supportive, firm bucket seats—in a package that weighs less than 2,800 pounds. The S2000’s crown jewel, however, is a 2.0-liter naturally aspirated four-cylinder engine pumping out an incredible 240 horsepower at 8,300 rpm and revving to an 8,900-rpm redline”.

It became a cult icon for all the right reasons: sky-high revs, rear-wheel drive, a manual gearbox, and a feel that was built purely for the joy of driving. No shortcuts, no shared parts, no compromises. It was Honda at its most passionate and driver-focused. It took on Porsche and BMW head-to-head and came out on top. It had a base price of around $32,000, so about $15,000 less than the base Porsche Boxster.

RELATED Spot: See the Honda that put them on the radar of car buyers.

So with all this good stuff going on, why did production end in 2009?

Think back to that year and remember what your 401 (k) looked like. Kind of scary, right? It was that financial meltdown that led to the decision to end production, especially given the niche nature of the car’s market. That final year was its worst as far as sales, with only 795 sold. It didn’t do too badly, though, with over 110,000 Honda S2000s sold globally and over 66,000 in the United States. Ones sold now on lots like the one I found here were listed at the original MSRP, some for even more than that.

Honda hasn’t forgotten the lessons it learned from consumers, and there is talk of bringing it back. At the 2025 Tokyo Motor Show, Prelude Chief Engineer Tomoyuki Yamagami told Australian media that the desire inside Honda to build a new S2000 is alive and well.

“Every Honda employee loves the S2000,” he said. “Someday, I’d like to build another one.”

Ah, but there’s this: the S2000 launched in Australia at $69,950 back in 1999, the equivalent of about $140,000 today. Ouch! Then there’s the fact that low-volume sports cars are notoriously expensive to engineer, and Honda’s current focus is firmly on hybrid and electric development like pretty much everyone else. Too bad.

Thanks for stopping by and checking out this week’s spot. I have lots of others on our site, so go check them out to see if you might have owned one. Come back next Sunday for another one of my finds, along with some of its history, and have a great week.