Then, I waited until later that year when I moved out of that crappy apartment into a much nicer place with a one car garage. I ended up picking up a much nicer 2003 Berlina Black S2000 with only about 65k miles on it. This thing was great! Well taken care of, 100% stock, low-mileage... I did all sorts of things to it. Greddy Evo2 Exhaust, aftermarket brakes and brake lines, swapped out the sidemarkers and cleared out the headlights, modifying the dash and adding the JDM navi bezel with a touchscreen monitor, swapped out the carpet to red, etc. etc. I ended up selling it in 2012 to a fellow board member from Chicago. I always regretted selling it but when money is tight, the first thing to go is always the toys. Here are some pics of it before I sold it:

Fast forward now to 2017. I ended up picking up a teaching job here in Panama and moved here back in 2015. Between 2012-2015, I had a couple daily driver cars to get me around but ended up picked up a 1995 Lexus GS300 with the INTENTION to not modify it... well that went out the window and I ended up swapping in a 2JZGTE motor and a slew of other aftermarket items. I ended up selling that GS300 because I ended up moving here to Panama. I had thought about importing it here but the cost of importing anything here in ludicrous and I had no where to store it. Here's a link to the youtube video I made when I was selling the GS300 if anyone's interested in checking it out:


Upon arriving to Panama, I didn't have any car for the first time in years. I had to use the public transportation system which really wasn't too bad for commuting to work and home. It pretty modernized as far as that goes, however can be pretty crowded but that's a whole different story for another day. Anyway, roughly a month after I had moved here, I had seen a sebring silver S2000 driving along while I was with my gf at the time. It looked decently modded from what I could tell. It was lowered on some AP2V1 wheels, a single exit cat-back, and an OEM lip kit. As we pulled up closer, I noticed a black recaro seat and realized it was also a rhd S2000... which I had never seen before up until then. Obviously, at this point, the fanboy in me got excited and memories of my black AP1 came flooding back. The S2000 bug started to bite again and thus, I began to look on the local Craigslist type for sale forum they use here, called Encuentra24, for not only S2000s but really, any car that would be reliable and somewhat sporty. I came across ads for Subarus and Evo 4-8s (JDM cars CAN be imported here... as the import laws are rather slack, just that taxes and import costs can cost more than the car at times!) and even a couple Skylines. Then... one fateful day... I went to the forum and searched 'S2000' and there it was! The same S2000 that I had seen that night up for sale.

I was ecstatic! I grabbed my cell phone and quickly started chatting back and forth with the the guy. Asking for pictures and whatnot. However, since I was new to the country, I had many doubts about buying a JDM car, as I wasn't sure of how registering a car like that would, or if it was even legal. I was doing my research and came back with mixed answers about whether it was legal or not. So, my excitement soon turned to disappoint and fear of being stuck with a car that I couldn't LEGALLY drive. Well, a month or so goes by and the search continued but yet, I would still find myself searching S2000s until one day, the ad disappeared. I assumed the car was gone for good. I had seen other cars here and there go by over the year... Integra Type Rs (DC2 and DC5), R33 Skyline GTR, etc. I would see JDM subarus all over the place and Evos and even a EK9 Civic Type R. I finally met some people who informed me that now, importing cars from Japan is more difficult, but if it's already registered into the system, there is no problem with buying and registering a rhd car.

Well, as fate would have it, almost a year to the day that I had seen the ad for the S2000 before, it was BACK up for sale! In fact, I still had the chat from the owner saved for some reason in my archived chats on Whatsapp, probably hoping that one day such as this would happen, that the car reappeared for sale from the SAME owner. Again, I acted swiftly this time in contacting the owner and asked about the car. Turns out, he took it off of the for sale forum because he had found a way to manage the payments for the car after being in a tough spot previously. However, he and his wife recently had a baby and therefore, it was back up for sale. I couldn't believe my luck. In fact, days prior, I was 80% sure I was going to buy this R32 Skyline GTS-T but it was in rough shape and needed some work (looked like it was wrecked before). The owner of that Skyline ended up removing the ad and literally 3 days later, the S2000 was up for sale. After a 3 week long process of dealing with the bank here, I was finally the owner of a JDM 2000 Honda S2000 with only 54,000 miles. It was a crazy, whirlwind of a story but it just goes to show, patience can be a virtue and waiting for the right deal can come around.

Here are some pics I took of the car getting it's detail since I bought it:

Then I took some photos near where I work on one of the old military bases, now converted into office buildings, schools, community, etc.:

MODS

Here are some more pics I took this same day next to one of the set of locks of the Panama Canal. This set of locks are called the Pedro Miguel locks. Pretty cool living within a mile of the Panama Canal and hearing the large ships pass through. Makes for a pretty cool photo session location too!

As I had it disassembled, I found the culprit. There's this little black tab that looks to have worn out of time and broken off from the adjuster flap which connects to the other three flaps. Luckily, the little tab that had broken off from the adjuster flap was still inside the piece that holds all the flaps together.

I purchased some plastic cement from Elmer's at my local Home Depot. I figured I'd give it a try and see how it holds. I applied the glue and adhered the two pieces together. It says it'll take about 24 hours for the glue to cure so let's find out tomorrow. I'll post up my thoughts and opinions about how well it held up tomorrow.