Honda S2000 Buyer's Guide
The S2000 (1999–2009) is the highest-revving mass-production roadster ever sold in Britain: a 2.0 four turning to 9,000rpm, a rifle-bolt six-speed gearbox and 50:50 balance. Our data holds a single sold result, a 2004 car at £7,762, which for the engineering on offer remains one of the quieter bargains in our records.
Know your versions
One generation, refined twice. The AP1 (1999–2003) is the raw original: 240bhp F20C, quick steering, and rear suspension geometry that made early cars famously snappy at the limit. The 2004-on facelift (AP2 in market shorthand, though UK cars kept the 2.0 engine rather than taking America's 2.2) softened the suspension settings, added 17-inch wheels and a glass rear screen, and tamed the lift-off behaviour; the GT designation on UK cars denotes the factory hardtop, as on one of our active listings. Japan and the US got a run-out CR club racer in 2008–2009, catalogued here but almost never seen in Britain. Purists argue for the AP1's edge; most owners are better served by the facelift.
What to pay
One sold result: £7,762 in April 2026 for a 2004 example. Our two active listings, a 2007 car and a 2002 GT, carry no published estimates, so we cannot draw a range. Take £7,762 as evidence that ordinary-mileage cars still transact well under five figures, and treat it as a single data point: low-mileage and unmodified examples trade meaningfully higher in the wider market, qualitatively speaking, and the gap has been widening as supply of standard cars dries up.
What goes wrong
The F20C is close to unburstable when maintained, with two disciplines: it uses oil when driven as designed, so the level must be checked religiously, and valve clearances need inspecting around every 24,000 miles, a job many cars have skipped. A rattly, lazy or hesitant engine is one that has missed both. Gearboxes are excellent but hard-launched cars wear the clutch release bearing; listen at idle with the clutch depressed. Early AP1 soft-tops had a plastic rear window that creases and clouds, and the top's stitching wears at the folds; a glass-window replacement roof is a common and worthwhile fix. Rust appears on rear wheelarch lips and around the boot floor seams on the worst-kept cars, but the real inspection points are accident damage and modification: many S2000s met hedges backwards, and many more have been tracked, lowered and remapped. Original suspension bushes and dampers are now age-expired on most; a refreshed standard car drives far better than a coilovered one.
Our view
An unmodified, well-serviced S2000 is a certain future classic: a naturally aspirated 9,000rpm engine will never be made again, parts supply through Honda remains good, and the car is durable enough for genuine use. At the £7,762 our single result shows, the entry price has not yet caught up with the significance. Buy the most standard car you can find, verify the valve-clearance history, and keep it that way.
