outoforder

I wrote it. Most of you will stop reading right here. Some may wonder why, and how, and what did I learn.

A few months ago someone on the S2ki website tried to send a message to Honda about all the things they'd like different on the next S2000. I tried the same thing about a month after I bought the car... I sent Honda a detailed letter. In response, a very polite man from AHM called and explained that because of intellectual property concerns, no such letter would ever get through to Honda engineering. I asked how Honda's customers should tell Honda R&D what they want, and he suggested responding to the third-party customer surveys.

Tried that. Those surveys attempt to pigeonhole the extent to which I feel brand loyal, or perceive the quality of the car. There wasn't any circle to fill in which asked: Will your next sports car be lighter / heavier / about the same as your S2000?

The problem is really that I've disqualified myself, as have nearly all of you reading this. We all bought S2000s. Clearly, whatever Honda is producing is good enough to earn our money. The message I wanted to send couldn't be sent by me, or you. The message I wanted to send is this:

From: slim313
URL: http://www.supraforums.com/showthread.php?...&threadid=63158
In a brief six hour window on Tuesday evening, 16 thousand people clicked through and read (portions of) that article. There were dozens of posts like the one above. These people actually spend tens of thousands of dollars to buy cars. Here's the message Honda: build us something with more horsepower, people will buy it!

What did I learn?

• I have less control over my message than I thought. I assumed that without any other corroboration, people would Google Iain McClatchie and Jorge Luis Borges and see it's a fantasy. Some did, many didn't. I've made Borges' name a link to the NY Times obituary to make it more obvious.
  
• Most people who post care a lot less about light weight and mileage than I do. Hardly anybody commented on the tranny or mileage.
  
• I made a bunch of mistakes that could have been rectified by having the right folks from s2ki proofread the article first. That would have made the article that much more convincing.

I hope you enjoyed the fantasy. I'll go back to lurking now....

mav

Interesting way to get your message through to Honda. I applaud your unique thinking and enthusiasm for the S2000.

dlq04

You definitely hit a nerve with many folks, and a lot thought you were definitely out-of-order. And you were. Wonder what nerve you hit at Honda?

PlasticTHUG

ah

Damillster

Rick Hesel

It's a pity that so many drivers don't give a damned about fuel economy and emissions. Their children and grandchildren -- suffering from the yet-to-come social, economic, political and health consequences of this stupidity -- will rue the day their ancestors were so selfish, narrowminded, and shortsighted.

I love the S2000 precisely because it is engineered for both high performance and fuel efficiency/low emissions. Every auto manufacturer should follow Honda's example. We'd actually have a better world if they did.

MacGyver

Come on, Rick...you're not so far past your high-school days that you've totally forgotten the "me first" attitude, are you? As humans in a seemingly civilized society, we all like to pretend we're here to save the trees, save the bees, save the whales, save those snails, and some are better at it than most. But when you come right down to it, we all have a bit of "Screw my grandchildren, I want to enjoy MY life" type of attitude inside us. I've seen you playing in your car firsthand (ahem...like a mudding trip up the inside bank of turn #4 at Lime Rock Park last year! ), you treat the car as it was designed to be treated (well, OK, it wasn't designed as an off-road jeep, but that was a byproduct, not an intent). I doubt you could convince me that when you were looking at that car in the showroom you were thinking to yourself "I bet this car gets GREAT gas mileage", except when the salesman mentioned it offhand and the thought passed through your mind faster than mud through your rims.

I'll stand up with the rest of you and say "Damn us for screwing up our environment!", while quietly mumbling to myself "You'll get my gas guzzler when you pry the keys out of my cold, dead hand!" As we work on cars during our tech sessions, someone always says "Oops! Well, it's not MY car." Well, I'll either be dead or pretty close to it before this world is screwed up beyond repair, so for today I'm screaming "Me first!", but when tomorrow comes and the world is screwed up, I'll be screaming "Look what you people have done!"

Uhhh, oy yeah, back to the topic at hand....I LIKE this way of getting Honda's attention. If you can't tell it to them directly, slip it in the backdoor.

mlrspwr

Yup, decent fuel economy is a bonus only.
You buy this car 'cause it's the coolest, badest go-kart that can be had for $30k.
Oh well, that is at least why I will get one. Cheers!

gregstevens

Nice job, OoO...I thought it was an admirable job on what some of us may like to see in a future version of the S2000. I knew it was a fake, however, right off the bat because your car didn't preserve the nomenclature of the Sports series of open cars from Honda. Your car should have been an S3000, not an S2000.

Notwithstanding, there are a couple of things that I differ with Rick on about this. If ANY company can continue to increase performance and maintain the same or greater LEV or even ULEV stanards, Honda can. Honda continually raises the bar on exactly this kind of thing. Emissions, in general, are lower in all motorcars these days and fuel economy continues to be at least as good while performance increases.

It's exactly Honda ingenuity that will carry forward these kinds of performance numbers while preserving their commitment to emissions and to the environment. It seems that other companies are playing catch-up in this department.

And moreover, I would snatch one of your S2000R's up because I don't want to have kids...so screw the environment!

Anyhow, nice job. I wonder if Honda is in fact listening. While I am happy with the performance of my S2000, this car will invariably change and evolve and making it into a supercar like your numbers indicate would turn the automobile world on its ear, even more so that the current version did. And anyone who thinks the S2000 will stay the same throughout the course of its production is kidding themselves. This car will change...become more powerful, faster, handle/brake better...simply due to competition. The MZ4, the Boxster S, the 350Z and other cars are going to force Honda's hand and Honda will react with a car that sets new performance standards due to the highly competitive nature of the industry...but they will not compromise their commitment to emisson standards.

Nice job...it would be cool it it becomes a reality. I'd get one...

outoforder

I guess the thing I find frustrating is the difficulty of conveying the idea that performance and gas guzzling don't have to go together.

Cars burn gas because:
- the driver uses the brakes -> less weight
- the engine has pumping losses -> tall 6th gear
- the rolling portion has drag -> less weight
- aerodynamic drag -> less frontal area or better Cd -> smaller car.

Weight and size are the enemy. Not performance. The average car, probably the average S2000, gets driven 12,000 miles a year. How many of those miles do you suspect are full-tilt pedal-mashing sub-12 MPG miles? Not very many. The rest of the time, the car should (and can) generate few emissions and burn little gas.

It's not an engineering problem. It's a social problem. Two years after people start voting with their wallets for more efficient cars, they'll get them.

P.S. I toned down the numbers because the numbers I got from the math looked so good nobody would have believed them!