Garage queen ftw.

 

Somewhere in the middle is your best bet. Get a beater and drive them 50-50. Keep it garaged, drive it pretty often, more often on nice days as a daily during the good season, and have a beater on hand for those nasty rainy days, driving it to places you fear theft or vandalism, and winter weather. Not driving much at all, and 20 years from now it has 25k miles on it, who cares if it's a collector car. The fact is, you never got to enjoy or experience the car enough, and that's what it's all about. Good luck in your decision.

 

That's a good point. If you have a beater, you can drive it as little or as much as you want. The cost of a beater can be quite minimal. You could get liability insurance which may reduce the insurance cost of the S (especially if you put it in for storage insurance over the winter), it will probably have better mpg, and wear and tear parts would be cheaper (all season tires on a beater that last 30k miles instead of summer tires on the S which last 10k).

 

The answer to the OP's questions depends on what station of life he's in.

If he's young and without family, the S2000 makes sense as a fun daily driver. You CAN drive it during the winter, with a good set of snow tires. I wouldn't, but that's purely preference on my part.

If he's my age (40's) with family, mortgage, and 401k, the S2000 makes more sense as a weekend/autocross/fun car to relieve the pressures of the world.

In my case, the car is a garage queen, driven only when dry (though I may start driving it even if it rains soon ), and stored during the winter, which makes uncovering it during the spring all the more special. I am also trying to save the car somewhat--while I'm not sure it will be truly collectible (too many made), this is likely to be Honda's last RWD or enthusiast effort for a VERY long time, and it will be worth keeping simply for that reason. I fully intend to teach my son how to drive a manual transmission car when he is of age, in my S2000. He's five now. Only about ten more to go....

 

I alternate between my 2000 S2000 and my 1993 Accord EX. I really do not consider the Accord to be a "beater". They are both, however, "old" cars.

 

I live in Toronto, Canada - we're not in the snow belt but we get a real winter up here..

What I do is drive the s2k for 7 months a year and the 'beater' (2005 2.5RS) the other 5 months. Insurance is cheaper and I only have one parking spot in my condo anyways.

 

Honestly, I don't understand the motive of buying then saving a car as a classic. Loads of people do it, sure.

But for me, I consider it borderline-abuse.

You only live life once and you're saving a car for weekends only? Or only driving it a few times a year? The whole concept of beaters is pretty lame too (w/ exceptions to weather beaters--s2k's in the snow/rain/mud aren't great). I mean, can you really, truly love a car if you're just saving it up so you can hypothetically sell it as a classic down the road?

Lets say you pick up your 2003 s2000 with 15k odd miles for $20,000. Do you think it's a good investment?

Best-case sale price in 30-40 years | Percent gained (taxes not factored):
$25,000 | 25%
$30,000 | 50%
$35,000 | 75%
$40,000 | 100%

Realistically, I don't see the car going for $40,000 anytime in the next 20 years. Maybe in 30-40 years.

But if you invest in the stock market (e.g. market index or index etf) and average a super-conservative 5%/yr, you'd pull off 40*.05=2=200% ... And at 8% you'd pull 320% in 40 years.

If you invest in stocks/IRA/401k, there may also be certain tax incentives for retirement and you won't be limited to just the $20,000 price of the car.

Anyways, the idea of holding onto cars is a crappy one IMO.

If you love the car, drive the sh!t out of it.
Drive it into the ground.
You live once and there are better investments out there.

 

^^After thinking about it on my own for a bit, I came to that same conclusion. If this was a Rolls-Royce or a Bentley or some other kind of showpiece-status-type car, it would make sense to keep the car as a garage queen. For a car like the S2000, it almost feels like I'm doing the car wrong to not drive it and enjoy it.

By 'saving' the car, I didn't mean save it so that I can sell it in a couple decades for a profit. Although that might be possible, I would save it more to just SAY I have a pristine-condition AP1 S2000. <--Whatever that means. Now that I have articulated that, it actually sounds kind of lame. Maybe I was subconsciously thinking about showing it at the 2027 Concours d'Elegance, as someone else on here said somewhere.

Some of you asked who I was. I'm graduating from college in a couple of weeks. No burdens really, and I will have a reasonable amount of disposable income as a cushion since I'll be living with my parents for one more year while working full-time (my company chose to place me here in MD for a year; next July I'll be moving elsewhere in the country).

Thanks guys. That was a big help. I'm going to enjoy my S2000, pretty condition and mileage be damned. Obviously, I'm still going to baby it as much as I can, but it's not worth suffering through driving a miserable Sentra when I have a much nicer car to enjoy.

I liken it to babies (don't hate...I couldn't think of anything better). They're cool to play with and you want them to stay little forever, but they're going to grow up at some point. Might as well enjoy them as much as you can while they're still little.

 

Yeah it's a Honda, not a Ferrari. Drive it and enjoy it. If you want an investment go get a CD or IRA or something.

 

Truth. Plus I'm scared to death of my S in the rain.

I do commute with my S2K when it's nice out, so about 6 days a year in Michigan