As a kid, one of my favorite things to do was to sit on my bed with a B lead pencil and clean sheet of paper. I would sketch side profiles of my own concept cars for hours. For some reason it was always the side profile that stood out as the focus of my drawings, not so much the front or rear ends. Maybe it’s because the side profile captures the key path of the aerodynamics that affect the car at path. Perhaps it was because a sleek and streamlined side profile is the defacto marque of a true performance automobile. Think about it. At that time for me, key examples were the Lamborghini Diablo, McLaren F1, Bugatti EB110, Ferrari F50, Acura NSX, and of course, the Nissan 300ZX Z32. Around this time, I discovered the profile of the S2000. A sleek, long-nosed hood, followed by a brief upward stroke of the windshield, dropping down and exposing the cabin, the seats, over to the trunk, up onto a spoiler, and down the rear bumper , with a tad of exhaust.
The profile was sleek, and very attractive to me, and it didn’t just look good from the outside. Push button start, rear-wheel drive, Front-mid-engine layout that sets the engine behind the front axles. Sure it was ‘another 4-cylinder Honda engine’, but this is a hand-made engine that, upon original release, revved up to 9,000 RPM.
The S2000 quickly took over track events all around. The car’s light weight and responsive handling, civilized street driving and quick drop-top conversion to an open-air roadster made it highly coveted for taking on spirited drives and record-setting lap times.
S13 _ Hatchback
My first car was a 1991 Nissan 240SX, in Misty Metallic Blue. I bought this car with $1500 that my mom handed to me when I was in high school, because I desperately wanted my own car and actually needed one too. I probably could have used that money for any kind of car, but the 240SX stood out. Pop-up headlamps, rear wheel drive, smooth sloping dashboard. This car was sexy. It was cool. Much cooler than my Dad’s Toyota Tercel. I wanted it. By this point in time, 240SX’s had gained much popularity in the drift-scene. But I wasn’t interested in drifting. I wanted to build a ‘grip-monster’. My first upgrades to the car were a weighted shift knob (Greddy Counterweighted round ball), Megan Street Coilovers (32-way adjustable!!!), and a set of Enkei 17×7 wheels with Bridgestone RE070 225/40/17 140treadwear tires on the rear and some decent Yokohama low profile tires on the front.
B14? 200SX
In my first or second year of community college, I sold my beloved, Nissan 240SX that I had purchased for $1500 and picked up a Nissan 200SX for $2300. The 200SX would be more fuel efficient, more practical, more reliable, and less of a distraction for me as I had just entered the gates to my study of the mechanical engineering discipline. I would dearly miss my 240SX and I still look at them with endearing eyes whenever one drives by.
Enter_Miata
Sometime in the late 2000’s or early 2010’s, I was given a ride in an NA Miata. Red, convertible. By no means the toughest looking car out there. It was the late afternoon on a hot day in the valley. My cousin had just finished cleaning up this car and offered me a ride up to the mountains. It was my first time ever sitting in a convertible. As the car started moving, I looked around with awe at the world around me. I could see behind me, to my sides, up to the sky with an uninterrupted view! What an incredible experience. The rocks embedded in the asphalt were passing by, so close that I felt I could touch them. The wind was blowing into my hair, and surrounding me. Then we started climbing elevation up the windy mountain road. In this open-air roadster, with every meter of elevation climb, I could sense the temperature variation all around me.
What started as a hot and sunny drive in the valley quickly transformed into a soothingly cool flow of air surrounding me. The road climbed on elevation, and I was blessed with an inspiring view of the valley around me. Uninterrupted by glass, seatbelt pillars, roof headliners, or anything at all. Just me and the world that surrounded me, at my fingertips.
This iconic view was embedded in my mind so firmly, that within the next year or two, I was the proud and thankful owner of a 1994 Mazda Miata NA. I wasn’t out there hunting for cars in particular, but when the Timing Chain gave out on my 200SX, I needed a car quickly to keep getting to school and work. I didn’t know it was the timing chain at the time, and rather than spend a bunch of money to diagnose what it could be, I decided to let the car sit for a while as I was already incredibly excited to own a Miata.
This car was a ROCKET. The 1.8 Litre 4 cylinder engine did wonders to propel the roughly 2800 lbs of weight that constituted the Miata. The 5 speed transmission was direct, the throws were short, and it simply reminded me of the elegance of an S2000’s manual transmission. Yet, this transmission was manufactured several years before the S2000 came into existence. It was really good. mashaAllah.
The ride height was LOW. Even my 240SX on adjustable coilovers, dropped down to their lowest settings did not result in a vehicle as low as this Mazda Miata with a very minimal drop in ride height. No less, once the Eibach Ground Control springs with adjustable perches had been mated to the Bilstein Spec Miata dampers, this car was as low if not lower than many supercars.
I took this car to run it at Adam’s Motorsports Park, an outdoor go-kart track that allows passenger vehicles to set lap times every week, during Time Attack Tuesdays. I was simply blown away by the acceleration and handling of this car. It would get up to triple digits without even trying. I often summoned myself to the slow lane on the freeway because in the fast lane, the car would not stop accelerating.
In a safe place, one could easily take the engine to its redline in 5th gear reaching a limitation on the maximum velocity attainable, not due to a limit in engine capability, but a limit on the mechanical gearing available. Maxed out in gears, the car couldn’t physically move faster than, perhaps 130mph or so. At the track, it put down lap times faster than cars that cost several times more than it and had much bigger engines and more parts. Ford Mustangs, Nissan 350Zs, move over. The Miata is too nimble for a car that heavy and slow to keep up with.
Farewell to the Miata
Long story short: I got into Berkeley and decided that the broken and damaged rear plastic window was no good for leaving the car on the streets for long periods of time. Also, the car was small, and I was making a big move. I was moving out, for good.
I had the 200SX’s timing chain replaced, sold the Miata, packed up all of my belongings into the 200SX and drove North. The 200SX had some more problems and I had to leave it South for a while. But eventually, got it running again and it was my main set of wheels for the next year-plus.
Hello.S2K
Fast forward to 2014. I’d just completed my Master’s and by the later portion of the year, I’d landed my first full-time job, by God’s grace. The S2000 had been on my radar for Years. I test drove a black AP1 at a dealership off of Stevens Creek Blvd, though I was living in East Bay at the time. The car had upgraded tires, some white led interior lights, and the paint on the engine cover was cracking and faded quite a bit. The car looked like it had been abused. But I test drove it, my first exposure to a potential S2000 to purchase. The second hand dealer owner was not too excited about me revving the engine even just a little bit. He freaked out when I took it up to 5 or 6k RPM for just a moment. So I was not able to even test out the VTEC. This wasnt the right car for me so I carried on.
It was also my first time in an AP1. To be frank, it wasn’t what I was expecting. I remember thinking that it felt like a ‘kit car’. It didn’t feel complete, as the last time (and the first ever) time I had driven an S2000 was an AP2. AP1 just felt a bit tame. So I set my sights on an AP2. AP2’s were built from 2004 – 2009 (verify). 2006 I was not too excited about, because of the drive-by-wire throttle actuation system. I had at this point spent many hours driving my Dad’s Toyota Yaris, with an electronically actuated throttle. I had very well experienced the phenomena of blipping the throttle, and not hearing or feeling the engine respond for perceivable milliseconds afterward.
I know many cars have better tuned drive by wire systems. However, I was working at CARB at the time and I knew that cars with drive by wire systems were able to tune certain parameters on the fly for reduced emissions, and that the delay I perceived could be due to the calculations happening to support this. I wanted nothing to do with a drive-by-wire system so I opted for a 2005 as the cutoff. Naturally I still preferred a 2005 to the 2004 models but I don’t recall now too well the difference between the two model years. Oh I also wanted a black car. For sure, hands down, no questions asked.
Lo and Behold in early 2015, I discovered a Honda S2000, AP2, Black, 2005, bone stock, with one previous owner. Wow. Amazed at the grace of God to allow me to find the exact combination I had been searching for, and the car was just miles from where I was living. I already had financing pre-approved from my bank prior to visiting the AP1 S2K. I made some adjustments to that, and went to the dealership with every intention of bringing the car home that day if everything checked out. And it did. Alhamdulillah.
For the first time in my life, I took possession of a Honda S2000.
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