Why.. is Honda's brilliant drivers car often overlooked by motoring journo's? ..this is something that has baffled me over the years I've owned the car.

It appears that 9 out of 10 track car reviews I've ever read have excluded the S2000 whilst always including the Elise (fair enough, can't argue with that) and more than often including the Boxster, the Z3/Z4, and usually in a lower power category they include the MX5 and MR2/MRS.

A similar spread of cars also appear in the 'Which sports car for the road' reviews and more often than not Honda's little gem is simply overlooked.

I'm sure someone once mentioned that Honda were perhaps quite particular who they loaned a car to for the purposes of reviewing it, thus putting certain publications noses out of joint no doubt; could this be the reason I wonder?

 

It's partly Honda's 'between two stools' market positioning - the Prelude & to a lesser extent the NSX tended to suffer from the same fate.

Remember the Germans spend a LOT more on advertising than does Honda - hence hack's sycophantic whoredom for even inferior German models.

Add that only the likes of LJKS has enough engineering knowledge to appreciate the depth & quality of the Hondas, while the meeja studies morons think rapping the dash moulding with their trailing knuckles is in some way informative of perceived quality, let alone build quality.

 

You either get it or you don't.

Most stuff I read is self perpetuating nonsense shrouded in creative writing. And journos certainly don't live in the real world of actually paying for stuff

The S2000s big let down is that it was designed to drive well first and then be cost effective.

This means unique suspension setups, fantastic engine that focuses on so much more than outright power, and surprising practicality.

Switch gear and trimming are completely uninspiring. They work, but they don't match the German stuff in terms of tactility and response.

The thing is, money and time would have gone into that so it depends on what you want.

I'd rather pay for the important stuff, but journos don't have to pay, so unless there have been 500 man hours designing a self damping balanced seat adjustment switch, it just lacks quality. Quite.

So, the S2000 doesn't work because you have to work with it. You can't just get in and drive it fast, you have to have a clue. You have to appreciate that clever people spent a long time engineering a car to be at its pinnacle within a narrow envelope. They say that you have to drive it so because that is how it's designed.

Do you really think a hack likes being told what to do?

 

Some good points there Ultra. its like when they rave about Renno's. i wonder what they're like to own for a few years. i had a citroen years ago and it felt kit car quality mechanically. noisy window seals, frequent buckled discs, over assisted brakes and alignment drifted badly. even with 10 yrs and 50k my S shames that for 'stability'.

the bikes are the same. superbly engineered. not sure about the newer cars though

 

Good point - there's room for a whoosh pterodactyl over my head.

Hondas are still apparently popular as tear-down vehicles for other manufacturers, even if there are recent FRED-induced quality issues.

Then there are the innovations to come; g-programmed CVTs, super hybrid SH-AWD, PAWS (precision all-wheel steer; yes, really!) etc still to come.

Let the moronic c unts carry on percussing VAG dash mouldings; they won't understand the previous sentence anyway.

 

There must be something deeper than that.
An Elise with its GM stalks, Rover engine, kit car trimming etc always had rave reviews.
With a much more narrow 'envelope' and harder to drive fast.

As its got heavier and softer the writers have lessened thier enthusiasm. So is there
something else?

Russ.

 

I subscribe to Classic and Sports Car. They are always writing articles about potential future classics or cheap sports cars or even cars that seem to have been forgotten by the mass market. They have endless articles on the Elise, Boxters, MXs etc etc but the S2000 never gets a passing comment. In fact someone did post a comment to this affect and guess what, nobody responded!

As already alluded to, the car is neither a specialist muscle machine nor a run-of-the-mill motor. The car is dead cheap to buy (3-4K) so no rarity value but also, there wont be a nostalgic "I remember when I used to have one of those" MGB moments in the future because they never sold in large enough numbers.

Now, if Honda had produced a decent exhaust burble fro the S2000, or perhaps a turbo charged version, then the press would have something to write about.

Be honest, the car simply doesn't turn heads. It's a bit, well, Steve Davis.

Oh, and I love it!

 

Excuse me.

Even after all this time I still get caught.

The occasional S2000 wanders by me in Dereham or Sainsbury's car park in Longwater.

Turns my head to the point of arthritic paralysis

 

Do you think that the Elise has a narrower envelope than the S? Interesting!

The Elise is more focused to track work, but with the K in it, i'd have thought it would be easy to understand and easier to make progress.

I think therein lies the journo bandwagon - it was sooo light (I mean even the most green journo knows CC's mantra and it's good to write about [bit like Senna and the NSX] ), it was justified to have 'ordinary' switchgear.

I think what made me fully appreciate how good the S2000 is, was after driving my Westfield. With the same power, but less than half the weight (even with me in it), it really put it into perspective at how the S is an amazing all rounder

 

Mostly it comes down to a huge anti-Japanese/pro-European bias in the UK motoring press.

As a subscriber to "Car" in the 90s I remember article after article of how the Golf handled so much better than a Civic, even though the Civic had double wishbones all round (or "Fully independent rear suspension") and the Golf had a torsion beam.

Now that the Civic has a torsion beam and the Golf has "Fully independent rear suspension" it's now the torsion beam gets slagged off and fully independent is the way to go apparently.

Then they have the nerve to publish this article telling us how good the old Civic really was: http://www.carmagazi...ts-the-new-one/ which includes this quote:

Quote:

All this makes the EK Civic a fun car to drive, certainly more fun than the new Civic and the Mk3/Mk4 VW Golfs that were on sale at the same time in the late ’90s/early noughties.

It was a similar story with the NSX - it wiped the floor with everything at the time - compared to "widowmaker 911s" it was too easy to drive and not manly enough, and it "lacked soul" compared to the Ferraris (it didn't break down every 20 miles).

With regards to the S2000, Car told us that a TT was a better car - they did at least get the comparison right as they were similarly priced, most magazines pitted it against 25% more expensive Boxsters and Z3/4s - but I suspect they wouldn't say that now as the received wisdom is that the TT is a bit dull and uninspiring to drive.

Of course, Honda's marketing in the EU has been a disaster for ever, which has really hurt them. Had they employed the same people as Audi, then things may have been very different for them.

They don't understand the European market at all whereas they've done fantastically in the USA where value and reliability carry far more weight than "brand" or "perceived quality".