What is Your Unicorn?
Urban Dictionary contains several connotations that modern society has attached to the word “unicorn”. For the purposes of this article and considering that this is a family friendly section of a car website, we will define a unicorn as that vehicle for which you’d go any distance to own, keep, drive and cherish forever.
Most of us own and drive an S2000, and yet some of us find ourselves pining for one more. Perhaps the miles on the current car were put on too quickly, or perhaps it has been customized beyond recognition, and we now desire to find a clean and pristine model that can be stored for perpetuity OR maybe we seek one to build into a racetrack-only machine. It does not help that Honda has stopped production of the S2000 and that the only ones that can be found are CPO vehicles with garish dealership stickers on them quoting an exorbitant price. How one wishes that the proverbial little old ladies of the world had bought up all the S2000 CRs and barely driven them each year, stored them in a temperature controlled barn during the winter, and then one day deciding to down-size, sell it to one of us without a clue as to the value of their low-mileage gem. That, however, is a dream with a very low probability of occurring. Most of us will have to climb mountains and cross valleys, possibly outwit a salesman or two. How much further would you go then if you found that unicorn that spoke to you on the dealership floor or through images on AutoTrader and asked it to take you home?
We also have those whose S2000 is the unicorn they have always desired. A sizeable portion of us would belong to this group. Having bought the car of our dreams (or at least of one dream), we now spend the rest of our active adult lives around it. We spend hours carefully detailing the car, work overtime for the extra money so we can pay off the car or for the financial leverage to make it louder, faster or to lower it. We cringe or grunt every time a significant other rests their feet on the foot well center bar and request annulment of the relationship when feet are placed higher still on the dashboard.
Then we have those who have always wanted an S2000 or nothing. They are specific about the model year, color, interior trim and mileage and will go the distance to purchase the right car. One of our editors recently ran into another member driving a 2006 Silverstone S2000 with the red and black interior. Recognizing that this was the car that he originally wanted to purchase until the deal fell through, he struck up a conversation with the owner who said that he was researching S2000s since before he learned how to drive. He’d spend nights falling asleep reading S2KI on his computer and looking at pictures of the car in the gallery section. The ’06 Silverstone with that interior combination spoke to him and he decided that it would be the car he’d buy one day or not buy one at all. Not knowing how to drive a stick, he had a family member come check the car out for him and had the car transported to his home. He had found his unicorn and our news editor was finally happy about the one that got away.
Are you still searching for your unicorn or have you found it? To what extent would you go to get one or to keep the one you already have? Care to tell us how you found it?
Tip of the hat to S2KNFR and Mark355 for the inspiration
Photos courtesy of DG and triman54