Honda S2000
So, what can be said about the S2k then? Not the first time I've had a go in one, but this time I had my GF along so she also got her impression of this little marvel.
The Swiss ones all have the 2.0 liter engine developing 240hp with a 9000rpm redline. It still has one of THE best gearboxes and shifting experiences one could ever hope for, if not the best of all time (it's the best one I've ever experiences, that much can be said).
Very easy to just click the shifter into the next gear with very short and precise shifts. Whilst the TT has a more softer shifter feel, the S2000 feels almost robotic with an "on/off" feel to it. At one moment you're in one gear, you hold down the clutch (not a lot of travel, also feels very on/off) and the quite simply flick the shifter to the next position with a little click. Hard to explain in that whilst some shift knobs either wiggle around a bit in their gates or come to a rest within their gate in a slow motion, the S2000 shifter clicks all the way to the end in one quick movement and then locks in place. It's just another world
Turn on the car, and immediately it begins to idle at 2000rpm (hehe, my car just idles at 500rpm), and then you're off. "Oh look, I'm hardly trying and we're at 4000rpm" (at those levels, my car is already screaming along). Push a bit more past 6000rpm and WHOOOSH the VTEC kicks in, increasing the pitch of the engine noise in an amusing, often mistaken for a Turbo kick style feel.
It's definitely a very fun car to drive, if a bit weird to get used to it in that you need to keep those RPM's high to have enough torque for proper passing and city driving. At least compared to my car, it would almost be a rule of thumb to keep RPM's always twice as high as what I'm used to.
However, there's just one problem with the S2000... it's not the safest car to drive if you're new to rear wheel drive. This thing can be nasty on the wet, and even on the dry it's been known to bite a drivers head off. Case in hand, just prior to coming for the test drive, a previous "tester" had curved the rear passenger side wheel pretty hard. In fact, during my drive, it felt like the car wobbled a bit in the rear at times, and the steering wheel was slightly angled to the left. I think that car got a bit f'ed, but I just had to drive it and new the dangers, so whilst common sense would have told me not to drive the car (the wheel might explode or something), I just said "fuck it" and went ahead... you only live once
Oh, and to prove that the S2000 really can be a handful for some people, behind the shop we found another one, which had obviously seen some kinda wall and field... most likely the rear end stepping out of line :roll:
Personally, whilst I'd love to have an S2000, I don't think I'd like the idea of letting my GF drive it since she's not so experienced in manual transmission cars as I am (not that I'm very good either... I spend too much time with automatics), so if I were to tell someone to get a fun convertible in order to learn a manual tranny, they should go with an MX5 (Miata), it's a bit safer