It all depends what's available in your country. If only one is for sale in 6 months you'll end up buying it. If four are for sale in six months you'll buy one of the four that suits most. When you have dozens to choose from (if you're prepared to travel) you'll get picky and take your time.
I guess you're in the latter position?

 

Well, I was deciding between the S and a StangGT so I was going thru a bunch of ads daily. All in all took about 2 months to decide on the S and then after a couple weekends of test drives found the one I bought. But I'm in LA so its not necessarily hard if you're looking..

 

Well, I wouldn't say that I have dozens to choose from since I've limited my choices. I want either an '06 LBP or an '05 GPW w/ tan interior. Living in Northern California does improve my odds but only a little. I am considering going the long distance purchase route since we now have carchex.com. Still, I'd prefer seeing and test driving the car for myself if I can.

 

I found mine the same day I sold my deuce.

Saw it on Ebay & watched for 2 days. Then I sent seller an email asking to test drive it & possibly buy outside ebay... I drove to Connecticut, car was good. 3 days later I owned it.
Wham bam thank you mam.

In todays market of clown cars, the choices are simple... until the car companies step up with something more worthwhile, its either a vette, mr2 or s2000 for my money. Anything more than 2 seats is just wasted space.

 

took more than a year...
flew from dallas/fort worth to south dakota...twice in late november...
found a 2003, silver with all red interior (yes even the dash) with only 8,000 miles...
seller wouldn't budge on the price so i flew back home empty handed...
two days later owner called back...met my price....
so i flew back to SD, paid for it, and drove it home in a snow/sleet fest...at night...

 

Took me two weeks but I think I got really lucky. I only wanted an AP2 GPW and I wasn't picky about the interior color, the DBW, traction control, etc. I was just looking for a clean, well cared for, lower mileage GPW. I only found ones that matched my criteria at stealerships and then one popped up on the sale forums here and I hopped in it asap! I love my car .

Just be patient and don't settle. Luckily, our cars don't have many options and only changed about 3 times over the 9 year life. Compare that to BMW's with a bajillion options, colors, interior colors, mileage, owners, care, cost, etc. the S2000 was a breeze .

I paid a bit of a premium for mine but it was totally worth it. Be patient and your car will pop up and you will be the happiest person ever! Don't settle or justify things. If the owner is a nitwit, something doesn't feel right, etc. just turn and walk away.

 

Before I got the AP1 I was looking on and off for months but not S2000 specifically. I was looking for miatas, 240sx and the S. Then a month ago I got serious and started to look multiple times a day on CL and AT. Didn't find much that met my criteria which was: under $10k, clean record, low mileage, good condition, and either GPW or BB. Found non that matched. I Went to check out 2 NFR on 2 consecutive days and bought the latter one. It wasn't my choice of color but I was running out of time. Lol.

 

For me, it was still hard to find a NEW one that met my criteria (GPW with very low miles that wasn't a dealer swap or demo car). They were nonexistant in my whole state and bordering states as it seems like either the dealers rarely ever ordered that color and/or they were quickly bought when they did. Every dealer told me they could get one but they would've driven it back from some far off dealer if they actually found one. So after 1.5-2 months of seriously searching, a family friend that was a former coworker of a sales manager at a Honda dealership found out that they just put in an order for one and would sell it to me for a reasonable price (a little more than I was hoping for but was good enough). I rushed there the next day and put my money down.

 

Yep, about 2 years to find a dealer in my area that wasn't upcharging "exclusivity fees". Of course, that was about 7 years ago... I saw dealer prices as high as $40k when the S2k first came out.

 

I found mine through a search on Honda's website. After looking at Yahoo Autos nationwide for over six months, I found a CPO MY07 with 6k at a really good price...and the dealership was 12 miles away.