Late20 Guide: Honda S2000

"Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney" (braddelaparker)
01/29/2019 at 13:11 • Filed to: late20, late20guide, instagram, honda, s2000, s2k, ap1, ap2

Honda S2000 (2000 - 2009)
Drivers: $13k - $17k
Garage Queens: $25k - $30k
High Sale: 1,000 mile AP1 for $48k in Nov. 2018 on !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!

Tonight we finish our Vol. 1 Honda entries with the crowning achievement of Honda’s half-century of sports car production, the S2000. Prices bottomed out across the board sometime in 2016 or 2017. Things may get dumb in the next 5 years as the S2000 leaves the grasp of the used car lot and enters the realm of Gen X-ers who have enough money and nostalgia to outbid all comers. The stripped-down Club Racer models of 2008 and 2009 will lead the charge on price appreciation.

Get a nice one for the price of a used Camry now, kids; we’ll all be kicking ourselves in 2025 if we don’t.

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DISCUSSION (12)

Just Jeepin' > Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney
01/29/2019 at 13:57

I keep dreaming, but I think the price is going to keep escalating out of my comfort zone.

Any chance you’ll be tackling the del Sol? Drove mine for 14 years, absolutely loved it.

Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney > Just Jeepin'
01/29/2019 at 14:10

This time around I didn’t include the Del Sol for two reasons:

1) Time constraints. My list is at 240 cars right now (will change here and there as I finish my research/rough drafts), and if I’m going to get it done in time to publish the print copy of the book by the end of this year then I have to hustle. Since I already included the EH3, I felt comfortable leaving the Del Sol for Volume 2 in 2020. I kind of did the same thing with the third generation Civic Si and the CRX Si, folding the Civic Hatch into the CRX’s writeup.

2) Not a ton of really good trackable pricing data out there for Del Sols right now, which would have made it hard to generate a pricing guideline that I felt comfortable with.

Just Jeepin' > Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney
01/29/2019 at 14:13

Thanks for the response, and good luck with the series. Quite an undertaking!

Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney > Just Jeepin'
01/29/2019 at 14:14

Gonna save this conversation down for when I do my Del Sol research next year, or if I manage to finish early and have time to squeeze a few more cars back in, I might need to pick your brain!

And thanks, it really is. I’m enjoying it, but holy hell it’s been a lot of work and I’m only about 10% done so far!

ZHP Sparky, the 5th > Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney
01/29/2019 at 14:15

I sadly sold my 03 for $12k pretty much at the bottom of the market I think, for a more practical car.

Part of me wants another S2000 but it won’t make sense while our kid is still a baby, and by the time I’m ready for it will probably be a bit too expensive…and for the money there will be other cars I haven’t owned before that will be tempting me too. Cough*cayman*cough.

Just Jeepin' > Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney
01/29/2019 at 14:19

It’s doubtful I can help you with much, sadly. I’ve never really been a car guy, and while I loved it to death (literally, it died and almost took me with it) I never knew much about it.

Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney > ZHP Sparky, the 5th
01/29/2019 at 14:32

Yeah, $12k for a clean title, not-clapped-out S2000 was basically the bottom of the market. I even debated raising my low price on drivers above $13k beca u se I’m seeing fewer cars you’d really want to buy at that price. But hey man, you do what you have to do!

On the other hand, I am in wild support of purchasing a Cayman instead of spending $30k plus on an S2000, much fun as they are.

ZHP Sparky, the 5th > Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney
01/29/2019 at 15:42

Yup honestly I might have let it go for a bit too little. Clean title, 50k miles, white on tan with zero issues (it is a Honda after all)…but I had my heart set on a 5MT Legacy GT wagon and made it happen.

It’ll be interesting to see in a few years – these things will keep climbing in value, and there should be a variety of caymans to match up with each of the driver/garage queen price points. Of course maintenance will be more costly, but you gotta have a trade off somewhere for the German badge, true mid-engine layout, and performance upgrade that comes with a Cayman.

RT > Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney
01/29/2019 at 17:38

I’ve been enjoying these Late20 posts lately, and as a fellow Opponaut who published list articles a while back , you got me curious about something…

What qualifies a car to be listed in the Late20 series?

And

How do you differentiate models - e.g: does a BMW 325i share the same post as an M3 of the same generation?

Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney > RT
01/29/2019 at 17:49

Thank you!

So, the name Late20 comes from Late 20th Century , given that the modern classic/youngtimer segment largely comprises cars made in the late 20th century. That said, there are no hard dates, but the target cars will be typically have been made between about 1975 and 2005. What I’m looking for are cars that are nearing the bottom of their depreciation curve, or starting to rise.

The second criteria is that there has to be good reliable data available from a pricing standpoint, and to a lesser degree just general vehicle information. Many cars don’t have the publicly available sales/auction data to develop an accurate pricing heuristic, so they have to be shelved.

The third criteria is, to borrow a turn of phrase that’s oh so relevant right now, the cars have to spark joy with a meaningful segment of the enthusiast population, and at the end of the day also me. Just because a car has a hardcore following doesn’t necessarily mean that it will make the list; it has to be special and interesting to a wider swath of people who are hardcore car enthusiasts but not necessarily hardcore about that car.

The last thing you asked about is where I’m really playing fast and loose and making gut decisions. The third gen Civic/CRX Si, for instance, I combined into one post because the cars are so similar that it didn’t really add value to separate them. Generally a 325i and an M3 are going to be distinct enough between content, desirability, and pricing that they’re going to have separate posts. Similarly, I’m not doing a separate post for the Mitsubishi Evo VIII and IX as they’re very similar, but I am doing a separate posts for the JDM Evo I and II (together) that are now eligible for import to the US, as they’re distinct cars to what we received here.

The last thing I’ll say too is that I’d love to do nuanced posts for everything, but I’m trying to do a print production of my guide by the end of this year so I’m having to make decisions on borderline cases. A big part of volume 2 (if there is enough response and support to do a volume 2) will be to go back and include cars that might have just missed the cut for this first edition and add cars that I get enough response from readers that they want to see.

RT > Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney
01/29/2019 at 18:13

I wish you the best of luck with this series. Cars of this era could definitely do with extra appreciation, so I’m glad to see more people are writing about them.

Your decision to cover pricing is also interesting , and certainly useful in the present day. I’m assuming it’s only from the perspective of the American market though; since you mentioned import laws and all. But, if you’re interested, I have some recent auction details of youngtimer cars in the UK .

I can understand why you chose to go by gut feeling too, it’ll definitely speed up the process . Personally, I found myself too conflicted, so I resorted to determine metrics in order to weed out ‘qualifying’ cars. In retrospect, I went a little too strict with it, but I think I’ve refined my criteria since. You can expect to see further posts on cars of 1978, 1990, and 2002 (depending on which fits together first). Again, it’s nice to know there are others writing about these cars concurrently.

Hope all goes well, I’ll stay tuned for the print edition.

Nauraushaun > Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney
01/29/2019 at 20:57

There are few cars under 100k that could tempt me away from my MR2.

This is one of them.

The other ones all have Lotus badges.

Cool write-up. Hope I can get in before the price goes up. And by get in I mean, get a warehouse and fill it up with 90s cars.