Keep the political bs out of the thread, again we have a section for that.

 

Sorry, I thought we were talking about the cars that are ACTUALLY bringing in big goober money. Again, LOW mileage, STOCK, UNMOLESTED, cars. I'm thinking most of those cars have led a very sheltered life, (pun intended). Please don't tell me about tides, and selling for less than market. Some people may pretend to take the high road, but rather they may not have a choice. Their ONLY choice is to find someone with the same rad mindset. Did I mention, take me off your short list?

 

If the S2000 is/was so great, why did Honda stop production? Mazda has been pumping out Miatas for three decades. I'll get my popcorn ready hehe.

Yes, clean examples are fetching great money. The rub is for people who want to actually drive them. From a competitive racing standpoint the S2000 is more or less nonexistent. The ND2 smokes it. So then the question becomes why spend 25k on a 10-20 year old car when you can get better performance and a similar driving experience out of a one year old car that's still supported?? The S2000 examples going for $50k will be driven MAYBE once a year.

I usually don't agree with anything Cody has to say, but I do agree on brining things to reality here. The S2000 is just a car. It was a mass produced car that Honda cut. You could get pretty big discounts in the final year or two. It's not unicorn sperm, folks.

 

You're absolutely right. We're not talking Unicorn. So why do people insist that these low mileage cars won't be driven, and the people that are buying them are paying stupid prices. Like I said before, why would I buy a new or used ND2 to get a "similar" driving experience, when one car is depreciating in value, and the other is appreciating, and my buy in price is the same. Makes no sense to me.

 

As far as the top-end of the S2000 market is concerned, I can understand what Cody is talking about — despite his insecurities. People have been talking about the S2000 becoming a collectible car ever since the car was introduced. It seems like over the past year, in addition to the "pandemic bump" in pricing that all collector/enthusiast cars have experienced, the S2000 has finally been deemed collectible by true collector crowd. Therefore more and more of them want one, it's like a feeding frenzy. Despite the hype as Cody puts it, when it comes to those over on BaT buying the really low-mileage S2000's at increasingly higher prices, the number one performance figure that seems to grabbing their attention is the amount of appreciation these cars will experience while parked in their garages. Otherwise it seems that they would have been buying these cars earlier when they were more widely available for less money. Regardless, a S2000 owner bragging about how low the mileage is on their car strikes me as an oxymoron.

The thing is, all of those ultra-low-mileage cars selling over on BaT were already just sitting around in someone else's garage. That why they have such low miles. So in the overall scheme of things, those cars are a wash. They've just moved on from one garage to another. Yet there are still people out there who are buying S2000's for the purpose of driving them. They might be looking at increasingly higher mileage examples, but that's sort of how it works with any type of classic (or simply older) car. Fortunately it's been proven that these cars are more than capable of racking up some serious miles. Over time, just as with any other older car, people will begin to adjust their concept of what a low-mileage S2000 is. As long as the ICE is still viable for use on our roads, there will always be people who will want what only the S2000 can offer. Other cars have almost no influence on this. While I respect the ND Miata, I have no interest in replacing my S2000 with one. Even if Mazda were to release a NE Miata that was a true world beater in terms of performance, it wouldn't matter.

From my perspective, the S2000 offers an overall experience that can't be replicated by any other car. There's nothing magical about this as the same could be said of most cars, bit it a NA Miata or a Chevrolet Vega for that matter. For those who enjoy specifically what the S2000 has to offer, no other car is going to match it. Again, this isn't saying that there aren't better performing cars out there to be had for similar money. But if you're looking for the unique experience provided by any specific car, other cars don't really matter. Experiences can't be measured, they just are. The reality is that there are all sorts of cars out there bringing in money that defies logic, yet they pale in comparison to the cars of today when it comes to performance, driving experience, safety, etc., etc..

 

^Well said, I was in the process of writing something similar but you beat me to it. I will add a little to yours by stating that though with faster cars in existence I and maybe others as well will not find worthwhile to trade up the s2000 to chase those extra seconds on the track that a faster cars may provide. This will mostly apply to those who already have the car and have been using it for whatever personal intended purpose and have spent the time to acquire/tailor the car to specific desire. Used/replacement parts going up is unfortunate...

 

6 Years ago, you could get a decent (2 Owners, stock, no accident, serviced, +/- 60,000 miles ) S2000 here in Germany for roughly 16.000€. Meanhwille, its more around 22.000 € .
Thats in Germany, where Japanese cars still considerd as cheap crap best to be avoided...
(In 2020 VW sold 136.234 Golf here, compared to 1914 Honda Civic..)

 

^We see a fairly significant premium for AP2 models here, even after accounting for AP2s being several years younger on average than AP1s. Are "refresh" S2000s in Europe also bringing much higher prices?

 

Looks cool, feels good, sounds good.

 

A little bit, but not so much. Kilometers on the clock, accident free, good conditon are the key points here.
Have a look, 25 S2000 for sale in Germany at the Moment:
https://suchen.mobile.de/fahrzeuge/s...r=false&vc=Car