Honda Buyer's Guide

Honda's five tracked sales sketch a market in transition: a £1,540 Civic and a £1,744 Civic Type R at the bottom, an £8,438 Type R and a £7,762 S2000 in the middle, and a £73,125 NSX confirming that when the market decides a Honda is a classic, it does not do so by halves.

The story, briefly

Soichiro Honda's company built its road-car name on engines that revved like motorcycles and lasted like anvils. The NSX of 1990, aluminium-bodied and developed with Ayrton Senna's input, embarrassed supercars at twice the price; VTEC arrived the same era and gave the Civic Type R and S2000 their 8,000rpm-plus party trick. Nothing here was cheap engineering sold cheap; it was expensive engineering sold sensibly, which is why survivors work.

Which Honda, for what money

The NSX is the established classic; £73,125 in our records is consistent with a market that has already re-rated the car. The S2000 at £7,762 and the EP3/FN2-era Civic Type Rs between £1,744 and £8,438 are mid-re-rating: unmodified, low-owner cars are pulling away from the rest. Ordinary Civics remain transport, occasionally excellent transport.

What goes wrong

Mechanically, remarkably little when serviced: these engines tolerate use that would destroy rivals, and they do not tolerate missed oil changes. The real enemies are rust (rear arches on S2000s and older Civics), crash repairs hidden under modification, and the modifications themselves; two decades of enthusiastic ownership means original cars are the scarce ones. On the NSX, service history from a recognised specialist is the price of admission.

Our view

Buy the most original S2000 or Type R available and simply keep it that way; our data and the wider market agree the direction of travel. At £7,000 to £9,000 the S2000 in particular offers a screaming, dependable classic-in-waiting for hot-hatch money. The NSX needs no persuading, only funding.