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S2000s have certainly gone up quite a lot during Covid, and especially over the past few months. [Case in point: an '01 with 900 miles sold on BaT for ~$29K in 2016; five years and fifty miles later, it was re-listed and failed to meet reserve at $48K!] But there have been a few "disappointing" auctions on BaT in just the past week or two, which might indicate a bit of a pullback.
My own sense is that they're a little over-valued right now, mostly because of an exaggerated (in my opinion) sense of their scarcity. In reality, there are still many thousands of low-mileage, well-kept, unmodified examples in the U.S.
I've had mine out briefly in the last couple of weeks and everywhere I go I get compliments on it, that wasn't so much the case previously. I think part of it is because we are seeing less and less of analog cars.
S2000s have certainly gone up quite a lot during Covid, and especially over the past few months. [Case in point: an '01 with 900 miles sold on BaT for ~$29K in 2016; five years and fifty miles later, it was re-listed and [url=https://bringatrailer.com/listing/2001-honda-s2000-84/]failed to meet reserve at $48K!] But there have been a few "disappointing" auctions on BaT in just the past week or two, which might indicate a bit of a pullback.
My own sense is that they're a little over-valued right now, mostly because of an exaggerated (in my opinion) sense of their scarcity. In reality, there are still many thousands of low-mileage, well-kept, unmodified examples in the U.S.
S2000s have certainly gone up quite a lot during Covid, and especially over the past few months. [Case in point: an '01 with 900 miles sold on BaT for ~$29K in 2016; five years and fifty miles later, it was re-listed and [url=https://bringatrailer.com/listing/2001-honda-s2000-84/]failed to meet reserve at $48K!] But there have been a few "disappointing" auctions on BaT in just the past week or two, which might indicate a bit of a pullback.
My own sense is that they're a little over-valued right now, mostly because of an exaggerated (in my opinion) sense of their scarcity. In reality, there are still many thousands of low-mileage, well-kept, unmodified examples in the U.S.
Awesome, I knew you'd jump in with this info!
Interesting that prices on BaT seems to follow mileage more than which "version" is being sold. But maybe it's not. I guess people buying on BaT are more interested in having a low mileage S, doesn't matter which.
Doing a rough by eye linear estimation, prices HAVE climbed pretty fast. Over the past five years prices have gone up on average ~$15k. Last year alone, average price jumped like $20k!!! WTF?
EDIT - just checked a few car sales websites and found comparable cars to mine. Asking prices are over double what I paid three years ago!!!
The S is one of the last real manual sports cars that is a real sports car and not controlled to death by computers. Does not even have some nav system. Pretty easy to work on. Nice trunk size for get always. Transmission is beautiful and the engine cannot be beat. Not as expensive as the manual air cooled P cars it seems everybody and their mother wants.
I have a great time driving this car especially top down on the many roads Northern California/Oregon/Washington/Nevada have to offer. Wife and I will blast off in the thing just for the joy of the drive and going someplace scenic. Not to mention a nice B&B.
Wow the pictures - wish I had roads to drive on like this. Closest I can get is the Blue Ridge Parkway which is still a nice drive. We have The Dragon here but based on groups I follow on Facebook I have not much desire to go - too crowded and a lot of hacks who cross the center line repeatedly and needless wrecks often. Looks like your drives are light on the traffic. I agree about the simplicity of these cars - my wife's 2019 Pilot is like driving a space shuttle - I like the Apple car play and think it'd be nice to get one of these that fits in an S2k but why do I want the added distraction? I can play anything I want through the bluetooth on the Alpine I put in.
Last edited by Quahogboy; May 7, 2021 at 09:57 AM.
Reason: Add Pictures
My own sense is that they're a little over-valued right now, mostly because of an exaggerated (in my opinion) sense of their scarcity. In reality, there are still many thousands of low-mileage, well-kept, unmodified examples in the U.S.
It continues to amaze me that we follow a low mileage perfect example on BAT, it sells then boom another takes its place almost immediately. For example right now there are 6k, 15k, and 20k mile examples live on BAT. A 16k and a 13k mile just sold this week - they are coming out of the woodwork and I can't understand how so many people who bought them would just sit on them.
Awesome, I knew you'd jump in with this info!
Interesting that prices on BaT seems to follow mileage more than which "version" is being sold. But maybe it's not. I guess people buying on BaT are more interested in having a low mileage S, doesn't matter which.
Doing a rough by eye linear estimation, prices HAVE climbed pretty fast. Over the past five years prices have gone up on average ~$15k. Last year alone, average price jumped like $20k!!! WTF?
EDIT - just checked a few car sales websites and found comparable cars to mine. Asking prices are over double what I paid three years ago!!!
Normally I'd feel the same way but this one was only 13k miles and bid up to $27,000 with Reserve Not Met. All I could think when watching that bid and didn't sell was Jeft Probst "The Tribe Has Spoken". Thing that made me happiest was that it was a dealer throwing it up on the site expecting big numbers - they didn't even interact with those commenting probably thinking they didn't need to.
I think twohoos comment on the auction says it all <There you have it: actual condition trumps “never registered/titled”>
Data updated as of today's sale.
Example of the filtering/analysis capability: looking only at base models without OEM hardtop, between 10k and 80k miles, it's clear that there's been an accelerating runup recently. (Note that the silver '05 at bottom right was a heavily track-modified car.) It's also clear that GPW cars command a noticeable premium.
I saw an AE86 in similar condition to the one I bought seven years ago for $6k sell for $40k on BAT yesterday. Lower miles, but still. Anything more than $10k up until recently was considered ridiculous for a 30 year old Corolla that wasn't either museum quality or imported. I had people freak over how much I paid saying I got ripped off, and now it just seems like a bargain. All the classic and iconic Japanese cars are shooting up in value regardless of what the OGs think they were worth. Think a lot of it is being driven by media hype around S2ks and millenials getting into their 30s finally able to blow money on a dream car. For sure what I did with my AP2 Suzuka. Retrospectively, I shouldn't have paid $20k for the jank I got, but I felt like the whole 86 situation was gonna play out with these too, and I wasn't gonna pass on my Gran Turismo dream car in the color I wanted. Think I was right. Not stressing about it losing value (and also not intending to sell it barring a fatal disease maybe).
Not looking forward to parts going up in price though. I've sold excess interior parts for cars in meh condition for double or triple what I paid. Demand's crazy. An engine I sold for $200 to some dude with a Starlet 6 years ago I could probably get $800-1.2k for now. Can't imagine what F20c/F22cs are gonna go for in a few years.
