Greg: Some of us bought our S2000's entirely for the performance and handling. There is simply no hard top within $15K that compares.

I've never much liked convertables and now that I've owned one for a while, I like them even less . The visibility is bad and the maintaince is high.

But I do love my S2000, this is why I'll likely get the carbon fiber top and leave it on year round.

 

Actually I like the look of the softtop and don't really like the hardtop. I'd be the one to spend 2.5k and get the supercharger.... where to use it? Sears Point, Laguna Seca and Thunderhill and some of my favorite backroads.

 

I can't even begin to imagine what the convertible top will look like after a winter (or several) with roadsalt, ice, the weight of snow when parked. Or how about freezing rain? Can you imagine the weight of that on the top?

Unlike some of the other people on the board who can afford a second car for winter, I can only afford this one (my wife says so). Besides, I love driving in the snow. I've driven my old 240SX up to ski resorts for 10 years with nary a mishap. Unfortunately there's no snow for us here in BC, so I did my first top-down VTECing for a month (blue skies really take some getting used to - haven't seen it in ages!).

 

Mikey, no offense, but I have never heard of someone buying a drop top and then buying a hard top to leave it on all year. Maybe I'm off, but that sounds a wee bit strange to me...to each his own and that certainly means you and anyone else who wants to do that.

To everyone else:
My point was that not ONLY is this a kick in the pants performance car, it's a CONVERTIBLE. It's DESIGNED to be driven topless...that's part of the car's essence.

I would ONLY put a hard top on my car if it substituted for a roll bar at certain tracks. Fortunately, all the tracks I did this year don't require a roll bar. But that may change next year.

I don't think it looks bad, in fact, I like how it looks...I just can't imagine spending that kind of cake on it...only under the circumstances that I just described.

Part of the allure of the car for me is that it handles like it does and it is a convertible...therefore you drive it with the top down. Otherwise, I drive the 4Runner...that's the way we do it here in Chicago, anyway!

 

And Loki, you're right on...you have the right playgrounds!

 

Greg, no offense taken. I suppose you see the S2000 as a convertible that happens to be fast, while I see it as a high-performance car that happens to have a soft top. It's similarly mystifying to me why anyone would buy a high performance and only use it for show. Yet lots of owners do exactly this.

The soft top for me was a "hold your nose and buy it". If there were a hardtop 2 seater meeting or exceeding the S2000's performance specs and even close in price I'd probably have purchased it instead.

But unless they drop the price of the 911 or NSX by half, I'll have my S2000 awhile. Or maybe Honda will release an S2000 coupe and I'll trade up

 

I'd consider a hardtop because the S2000 is my only car, and here in the rainy NW, it would be nice to have a glass rear window... I dont know about you guys, but I find that if my car sits in the rain for a while, the rear window gets water drops that dont blow off while driving... that makes it hard to see (as if the scratches and creases didnt!).

Thats about the only reason I would want the hardtop -- the glass rear window... oh, and the fact that its a larger rear window increases visibility...

 

Funny that none of the Honda dealers around Boston know anything about the hardtop becoming available on January 15. I think AutoWeek got some info from an unreliable source OR and quite possibly, thes Honda dealers don't know anything.

 

Ding, Ding, Ding

Give this man the prize.