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It’s the year 2007: Apple CEO Steve Jobs has just unveiled a product that combines a cellular phone, an MP3 player and a web browser into a single, seamless touchscreen device; the final Harry Potter book has, at long last, hit the shelves; and you’ve just bought a brand-new Honda S2000 roadster. It’s a sleek, silver machine with a screaming inline-four, razor-sharp handling and exotic looks that belie its affordable price. Wouldn’t the first thing you’d wanna do be a few thousand miles on it, the VTEC engine’s 8,000-rpm scream drowning out new music like Rihanna’s “Umbrella” and Linkin Park’s “What I’ve Done”?
Apparently not, if you’re the first owner of this gorgeous S2000 currently up for grabs on Bring a Trailer — because in spite of its 13 years on this planet, it has just a hair over 1,000 miles on the odometer.
If you’ve spent the last decade cursing yourself for being too young / poor / busy with children to buy an S2000 from your local Honda dealership when it was new, this is about as close as you’ll ever get to that chance. It comes with the manufacturer’s literature and three keys (two original, one valet), as well as a clean title and Carfax, as you’d probably expect of a car with an odometer that’s barely in the four digits.
As one of the later S2000s (known as an AP2 model by Honda fanboys), this 2007 model packs a 2.2-liter inline-four that redlines at 8,000 rpm, a grand less than the original S2000’s 2.0-liter four. Nevertheless, horsepower remained at 237, while torque rose a few pound-feet to 162. Shorter ratios for the first five gears in the six-speed manual made it easier to make the most of the engine’s power, which was all located near the top of the rev range; torque peaked at 6,800 rpm, and horsepower at 7,800.
The Silverstone Metallic paint on the outside pairs nicely with the black leather of the snug cockpit, which is so driver-centric, nearly every control apart from the stick shift can be operated with the hand still touching the steering wheel. (The sole exception: the CD player hidden behind a metal cover, perfect for your mid-Aughties mix discs.)
And interestingly enough, it could be yours cheap. While bidding quickly climbed to $30,000 once the car hit the auction block, it’s now holding at around $36,000 with just one day left to go. (The 2007 S2000 had an MSRP of $34,845, for what it’s worth.) So if an S2000 has always been your dream car, now’s the time to get a bid in on the best example you’re likely to ever see.
