New 3rd Gen S2000

Gibbo · 8 Dec 2015 at 13:41

Hi there

I really think Honda should do it, but my suggestion would be that they release two models:

S1000: Regular 1.6l/2.0l high revving engine or 1.6l turbo with around 150BHP, more subtle styling, still incredible handling, manual gear box with a price point to compete with the MX5.

S2000: Best 4/6 cyl NA engine Honda can shove into it, or worse case the Type R FI engine with an aim of 280BHP area. More aggressive styling, larger wider wheels, bigger splitters/spoilers so it looks the more serious bit of kit to compete with what BMW have on offer etc.

Or maybe they could just take the current S2000 and give it a facelift and some tweaking and re-launch it.

Just seems to me Honda need to do something, instead of just letting BMW/Mazda get all the affordable 2 seater sport car sales.

DAIR · 8 Dec 2015 at 14:19

I agree. An N/A engine for top sports spec.

lemonade · 8 Dec 2015 at 14:33

N/A VTEC engine is not going to happen, that era is gone unfortunately, they can't meet the euro emissions. The Earth Dreams series of engines is where there focus is now and they will most likely use a detuned K20C.

Gibbo · 8 Dec 2015 at 15:05

lemonade said:
N/A VTEC engine is not going to happen, that era is gone unfortunately, they can't meet the euro emissions. The Earth Dreams series of engines is where there focus is now and they will most likely use a detuned K20C.

You mean they cannot hit the emissions for a lower tax bracket? Ford achieved it with the Mustang V8, of course they had to de-tune it hence the drop from 435PS to 418PS due to emissions and RHD manifolds. I am sure a high-revving NA 4 cylinder would have lower emissions than a V8 though surely?

lemonade · 8 Dec 2015 at 15:32

It would not have met Euro 6 regulations and yep would have driven the tax bracket to high figures which would put buyers off, the Mustang is like £500. The old K20 was around 215g co2, realistically I'm not sure how much lower than that Honda could have achieved with a new engine and the need for higher power, considering the fact that the K20 is still a very advanced N/A engine to this day. Bolting a turbo is just easy and cheap and they got over 300bhp out of a 2.0 which was one of their targets and marketing showpiece for the car, all which would have been impossible with a N/A engine without bumping up displacement.

They even ended up going back to the drawing board twice with the new NSX after initially settling on making it N/A then finally turbocharging it, there is no way they will make another lesser sportscar N/A, not unless their engineers demand it. I don't think it's the end of N/A as Lexus proved that manufacturers can buck the trend and make high revving N/A engines if the engineers get their way, but Honda are shifting to a new era with Earth dreams engine and a new single modular platform that will be the base of most of their new cars.

mrk · 8 Dec 2015 at 15:54

"...six-speed manual gearbox."

Akagi · 8 Dec 2015 at 15:58

How is this a third gen though? Its the second one surely? I swear they were the same for their entire 10 year production?

e; OK I just looked it up and there was a subtle facelift and loads of invisible tweaks to the engine, drivetrain, chassis and brakes in 2004.

Despite that, it was still basically the same car, so I think this should be called the second gen... :rolleyes:

lemonade · 8 Dec 2015 at 16:12

3rd gen is an American thing, they termed the AP2 to be 2nd gen, in Europe a new s2k will be a 2nd gen.

Rilot · 8 Dec 2015 at 16:23

Yeah, in the US the AP2 got the F22C1 engine which only revs to 8,200RPM. Europe and Japan continued to get the F20C.

DAIR · 8 Dec 2015 at 16:45

lemonade said:
N/A VTEC engine is not going to happen, that era is gone unfortunately, they can't meet the euro emissions. The Earth Dreams series of engines is where there focus is now and they will most likely use a detuned K20C.

Well if Porsche are still able to pump out 3.8 and 4 litre flat sixes. Then there's still hope...... Right?

Akagi · 8 Dec 2015 at 17:03

Rilot said:
Yeah, in the US the AP2 got the F22C1 engine which only revs to 8,200RPM. Europe and Japan continued to get the F20C.

Haha "only"

My car revs to 8250 which seems perfectly mental enough, though admittedly 9000 would be nicer!

Jonnycoupe · 8 Dec 2015 at 17:45

Gibbo said:
You mean they cannot hit the emissions for a lower tax bracket? Ford achieved it with the Mustang V8, of course they had to de-tune it hence the drop from 435PS to 418PS due to emissions and RHD manifolds. I am sure a high-revving NA 4 cylinder would have lower emissions than a V8 though surely?

Tax? No they are talking about pollution emissions and NOx. High revs is counter productive in terms of burn time and combustion temps. They could make it with but it's the cost of the technology. Turbo is much cheaper.

Jonnycoupe · 8 Dec 2015 at 17:47

lemonade said:
3rd gen is an American thing, they termed the AP2 to be 2nd gen, in Europe a new s2k will be a 2nd gen.

Get out of here. We'd be on the 20th gen Civic on that logic. Screw the yanks.

Minor update for a gen, meanwhile we have a 9th gen Civic offering hatch and tourer variants?

Sin_Chase · 8 Dec 2015 at 17:47

I love the speculation on the price being north of £20,000.

Try again, it will be north of £30k no doubt. The original S2000 new price was the thick end of £20k, as good as 30 grand.

Jonnycoupe · 8 Dec 2015 at 17:51

It won't even be called s2000 anyway!

Civic R is now double the price 14 years later!

bledd · 8 Dec 2015 at 17:55

ITR please

Rilot · 8 Dec 2015 at 18:01

If Honda do make one I'm sure it will be an excellent car but it will be sanitised. The appeal of the S2000 and the reason why it's values are rising is that it was one of the last truly raw cars to be produced that wasn't a Porsche or a Ferrari.

lemonade · 8 Dec 2015 at 20:34

DAIR said:
Well if Porsche are still able to pump out 3.8 and 4 litre flat sixes. Then there's still hope...... Right?

Theres a fair amount of large capacity N/A engined cars out there, but they tend to be pretty much from large car groups (VW, Toyota, Ford) so they can make a business plan for it and subsidise. Porsche are highly profitable and have a great brand cache, how many people are going to fork out good money for a Honda with big running costs?

Get out of here. We'd be on the 20th gen Civic on that logic. Screw the yanks.

Minor update for a gen, meanwhile we have a 9th gen Civic offering hatch and tourer variants?

Something to do with the chassis code changing because of the different engine or some nonsense like that.

I love the speculation on the price being north of £20,000.

Try again, it will be north of £30k no doubt. The original S2000 new price was the thick end of £20k, as good as 30 grand.

Aye 20k is magic bean talk, the cost of producing a new RWD platform would be put into the final cost of the car!

If Honda do make one I'm sure it will be an excellent car but it will be sanitised. The appeal of the S2000 and the reason why it's values are rising is that it was one of the last truly raw cars to be produced that wasn't a Porsche or a Ferrari.

I think they would lose some of the old school fans with the hope of bringing in a new audience. The sad thing is they have lost their identity, when you think of Honda you think screaming VTEC engine, thats all gone now. But they have to move on with the times to survive, Honda engineers always used to say they would never ever make a turbo Type R or sports car as its crude and against their engineering philosophy now we have a Type R with a turbo, same thing with diesel, they said they would never ever make a diesel engine then ended up following the market trend, money talks at the end of the day.

Either way they will be making a sports car to add to their lineup, so it will be interesting to see what they come up with, personally would have loved to seen the S660 come to these shores in some official capacity, maybe with the 1.0 turbo engine, as I think its a great concept.

Jonnycoupe · 8 Dec 2015 at 21:20

S1000 then

rjk · 9 Dec 2015 at 09:25

Sin_Chase said:
I love the speculation on the price being north of £20,000.

Try again, it will be north of £30k no doubt. The original S2000 new price was the thick end of £20k, as good as 30 grand.

I have the original invoice for my car from 2006, £27,500 for a GT model.

With the CTR starting at £30k, I can see an S2000 successor [depending on performance and development costs/market placement/ being a huge amount more.