Aloha, just wanted to introduce myself. Not yet a s2000 owner but im almost there. Ill be moving away from the beautiful islands of hawaii to Virginia hopefully by the end of Nov. Just waiting for my settlement to finish up.

Ive been trying to decide on my next car which will start as my dd with some weekend track time (which is one of the major +s of moving back to the mainland since hawaii has zero tracks) then eventually just become a track car with occasional street duties. I will have to drive it this winter in virginia though, but will be garaged every winter after. The last car i built was a 04 g35 stroked and supercharged but being on hawaii didnt really get to enjoy the car other then occasional freeway entrance fun. I had a couple subarus after but had as much fun as i could with them and got bored. After that had another kid and bought a e500 benz which ended up being a money pit so i sold it and have been not very much enjoying a mazda cx7 for the last couple years. So now with the settlement and move coming up my very wonderful wife is allowing me(married guys know the feeling) to get another car that i can have fun with. I immediately thought another nissan/infiniti but but wanted something new to me, so for the last several months ive been looking hard at the audi s4 and bmw 335i, but with having such a negative experience with my e500, i dont want the portion of my settlement thats hitting my savings to disappear with every little thing that might go wrong with them.

So here i am, a month ago the kid in me said how about an s2000, since i spent all my younger years street racing a honda civic/crx, autox in a honda crx, and even a couple open track days at miller motorsports park in an acura integra. SO...i made my decision, an s2000 it is. Since the light bulb came on ive been scouring the internet reading everything i could, watching tons of videos trying to figure what i want in my purchase of my s2000. My initial budget isnt high because my wife knows me too well. At first she gave me a 20k budget, then split it, so initially i have a 15k budget then Jan i get the remaining 5k. This isnt my total budget ill have money to spend but these are just the big chunk of cash that will be going toward the car.

Heres where I hope alot of your guys input and opinions will come in. So at first I looked at the lowest possible mileage ap2 i can get with hopefully some steps in the right direction, suspension and wheels wise, also while also hoping theres an aftermarket hardtop. I found several but they were higher mileage anywhere from 90k-150k, which in reality i dont mind high mileage if its still running properly, not trashed and includes the other things i am looking for. So now I figure i want the most bang for my buck whether ap1 or ap2, since as mileage goes up the value of the car goes down it will also increase my budget especially since alot of the upgrades im looking at will nullify the mileage. On top of that if the car has something i dont need i could sell it and put it towards parts i do need/want. And i already have plans for the motor to be refreshed/rebuilt next spring. What do you guys think? Am i thinking wrong, should i go back to my original plan of buying the lowest mileage car i can get? Oh another quick question that ive searched quite a bit but didnt find the answer, if i have an aftermarket hardtop with oem hardware is the softtop still usuable? Or are you either set up for the hardtop or set up for the softtop?

Thanks in advance and sorry if my intro is too long lol. Im super excited to get my car and cant wait to meet some of the other s2000 owners in Virginia.

 

 

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