Honda's S2000 was built by engineers who ignored the marketing team
For its fiftieth birthday in 1999, Honda released a two-seat roadster whose chief engineer admitted marketing staff had barely been consulted. Listen to everyone, Shigeru Uehara argued, and all cars end up alike. The result, the S2000, squeezed more power per litre from its unturbocharged engine than any other mass-production car for a decade.
Its lineage ran through a concept called the Sport Study Model, shown in Tokyo in 1995 and inspired by Honda's first Formula One prototype of 1963 and the spartan Caterham Seven. Crowds liked it so much that the team felt bound to stay close to it. An early test mule built on a Civic del Sol felt cramped, but lapped against rivals at Suzuka it seemed so right that development pressed on along the same lines. Real-world testing ran across Hokkaido and then Europe, averaging around 450 miles a day at speed, with driving feel and sound ranked above outright pace.
The name followed a 1960s tradition of S roadsters, with the number describing its two-litre displacement. That engine, the F20C, sat entirely behind the front axle, giving an even front-to-rear weight split. In Japanese trim it made 250 metric horsepower at a lofty 8,800 rpm redline, roughly 125 per litre. A six-speed manual, a limited-slip differential and a dashboard modelled on McLaren-Honda Formula One cars completed the picture. Early cars were built at the Takanezawa plant beside the NSX.
Honda kept refining it. A Type V version in 2000 introduced steering whose ratio changed with speed and angle, the first such system in a production car, cutting lock-to-lock turns from 2.4 to 1.4. In 2004 production moved to Suzuka and North American cars got a longer-stroke 2.2-litre engine; torque rose while the redline dropped to 8,000. Stability control and drive-by-wire throttle followed in 2006.
The last notable variant, the Club Racer shown in New York in April 2007, swapped the folding roof for a fixed hardtop and added aerodynamic parts claimed to cut lift by 70 to 80 percent. Production ended in August 2009. For the model's twentieth anniversary Honda showed a restomod prototype and began selling parts to keep owners' cars running.
Source: Honda S2000
