While filming the latest installment of everyone's favorite overly dramatized street racing flick, Vin Diesel extended his rage from a character in the movie onto the right front bumper of an S2000. The Honda, owned by Ben from Bespoke Ventures and being used as an automotive extra in The Fast and Furious 4, sustained a fair amount of damage to the bumper, right fender and headlamp. There's no word on when Universal is going to be settling its tab for the damages done by Mr. D, but Ben has already got a "Vin Diesel Broke My Car" t-shirt for sale, which should ease the financial burden. That, along with the "Don't tune your GT-R" tee, should complete your summer fashion collection.
Fiat is banking heavy on the re-launch of its historic Abarth tuning brand. It's got several models coming up, including hot versions of the Grande Punto and 500. It's rebranded its S2000 rally racing team under the Abarth name, and has done the same with its sponsorship of Valetino Rossi's championship-winning Yamaha MotoGP bike. There's even talk about a dedicated sports car.
To tie together what is targeted as a blend between its racing prowess and road manners, the Fiat subsidiary has put together this creative little video that reminds us of that golden oldie, "The Little Old Lady from Pasadena". Thankfully they didn't put that into the soundtrack, letting us enjoy the uninhibited roar of the racing engine. Check it out after the jump and remember, "IN RACING WE TRUST!"
Click the image above for more high-res shots of the Honda S2000 CR.
Honda has officially priced the 2008 S2000, and for an extra $2,000 you can step up to the track-ready CR model for a cool $36,300 (not including $635 for shipping). As you've seen before, the S2000 CR nixes the soft top in favor of an aluminum hardtop, and comes equipped with a revised suspension and new aero bits while simultaneously shedding the pounds. If you're not inclined to make the trek to the track sans air conditioning and tunes, they can both be added for an additional $1,000.
The new for 2008 S2000 gets redesigned 17-inch wheels, retuned spring and damper rates that improve high-speed stability and steering feel, along with a tire pressure monitoring system and a new instrument cluster with redesigned fuel and temp gauges.
Honda's full press release is after the jump, and be sure to check out the S2000 CR's gallery below.
The hardcore, track-ready Honda S2000 Club Racer unveiled back in April at the New York Auto turned quite a few heads, and it looks like many of its visual cues are headed to Japan in the form of the JDM S2000 Type-S. A teaser for the S2000 Type-S is now up on the automaker's Japanese website showing the JDM car wearing the same wheels, bodywork, and rear wing as the USDM Club Racer. In contrast to the CR, however, the Type-S appears to have retained its folding soft top. The Club Racer has had that hardware removed for weight reasons and wears a cover with integrated fairings (or a removable aluminum hardtop) instead. You can compare the two cars by looking at the galleries below. The Honda Japan website doesn't give any specific Type-S details at the moment, but we grabbed screenshots of the images made available so far. Expect to see the S2000 Type-S revealed for all next month at the Tokyo Motor Show.
Honda's S2000 roadster has legions of fans who are very happy with its balanced mix of performance and handling. Then there are those who just can't be satisfied.
One of those power-hungry S2000 owners is known as hboy7777 in both S2000 forums and LS1 forums, and he's combining both those worlds between the frame rails of a Honda.
That's good-old American General Motors LS1 iron hunkering down in that Japanese engine bay, with what hboy estimates could be much as 500 hp before the nitrous is added. In a car that weighs only 2,800 pounds, that's gonna be one handful of a Honda.
The project is still in the works, but hboy plans to start with a Nissan t56 transmission, and if it won't hold, maybe try one donated from a Viper. That should do it. You might think weight balance would be ruined by an engine swap like this, but the owner says the aluminum LS1 doesn't weigh much more than the original powerplant and some firewall mods help keep the roadster's handing neutral.
We look forward to seeing what this Japanese/American hybrid can do, and plan to check in on hboy's adventures often. You can too, either at the LS1 Tech, or at S2K International.
When spy pics of the new NSX surfaced a couple of days ago, it was just a matter of time before we got a better look at Honda's forthcoming supercar running the 'Ring. The previous shots of the S2000-cloked mule gave us a rough idea of the length and rear suspension setup, but these new shots tell more of the tale.
The stock wheelbase of an S2000 comes in at 94.5-inches and this test car has obviously been stretched a good 10-inches or more. As such, the driver seems to be placed dead center within the vehicle. The rolling stock is also much larger than anything previously seen on Honda's four-wheeled superbike, likely sporting 18- to 19-inch wheels. As for the width of the mule, it seems to have remained the same, but the naked eye can only tell so much.
Although the Acura Advanced Sports Car Concept foretells the future styling direction of the new NSX, the lack of any new sheet metal would indicate that the chilly reception it received has forced Honda's designers back to the drawing board. We're certainly okay with that, as long as the 500 HP V10 remains unchanged. We're still coming to grips with the idea that the next iteration of the NSX will have a front-mounted engine instead of the midship V6 of the previous model, but time will tell when the NSX debuts, likely sometime in 2009.
Sometimes news is just too good to keep to yourself. Just ask GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz. With his company supposedly claiming 13 spots on Edmund's Consumers' Most Wanted list, Lutz just had to brag a bit on the corporate blog before the winners were made public.
And he should brag. Most other car of the year awards are chosen by us automotive writers who usually prefer horsepower over hip room. As the name implies, Edmund's CMW awards are chosen by the car-buying public. And despite not voting with their wallets, the car-buying public who visits Edmund's really like their GMs.
The GMC Acadia got Most Significant vehicle of the year, beating out Honda's Fit, the Toyota Camry Hybrid, the Ford Edge and the Toyota Tundra.
Click through to see Edmund's press release as well as the other category winners.
Click the image for oodles of high res, destop sized pics.
Honda decided to make our roving band of blogger's lives easier by not holding a press conference and instead just plopping the Club Racer version of the S2000 onto a stand for all to see.
The "track-worthy" variant of the S2K gets enough structural and body mods to make any time-attack junky weep, beginning with a quicker steering rack, stiffer springs and dampers and larger sway bars. Newly designed wider rear rollers gets shod in the finest Bridgestone Potenza RE070s and the new aero bits, comprised of a redesigned front clip, side skirts, rear bumper and spoiler, have been wind tested and racer approved.
In an effort to drop the pounds and low the center or gravity, Honda decided to nix the folding roof altogether and instead, replaced it with an aluminum hard top. The former home of the soft top gets remodeled with plenty of bracing to increase the S2K's chassis rigidity.
Sales of the S2000 CR will begin this fall and no production numbers were mentioned.
You can view all the debuts and galleries from the New York Auto Show here.
Check the gallery below and the press release below the fold.
Geneva was the venue at which Czech automaker Skoda introduced its new Fabia hatchback. While the Fabia's nice and all, the real eye candy at the company's booth is clearly the Fabia-based S2000 concept. The name refers to the Super 2000 regulations the show car conforms to, and it serves as confirmation that Skoda is hard at work preparing a customer-ready Super 2000-spec racer for use in FIA Rally events. The enclosed press release is short on detail, confirming only that the car features a 2.0-liter engine (naturally), roll cage (obviously), four-wheel-drive (a racer-specific addition), and other S2K-compliant features. Sadly, no power output for the car's engine is given. We'll guess that the final product should dish out significantly more than 200 horsepower, since the other Super 2000 rally cars we've covered here at Autoblog-- the new Australian TRD Corolla team car and Peugeot's 207 -- produce 255 and 280 horsepower respectively.
When we reported a month ago that Honda was working on a replacement for the S2000 roadster, we speculated that the new convertible could be positioned as an Acura. Such rumors are gaining credence as the S2000 replacement isn't shaping up to be much like the S2000 at all.
Emerging reports suggest that the new convertible could be badged as an Acura, which will likely mean it'll get a completely different name to fit into the premium brand's nomenclature – probably matching the "_SX" formula. (The brand issue is really only a consideration for the North American market – overseas Acuras are sold as Hondas, anyway.) It's also tipped to include four seats, whereas the S2000 is a strict two-seater. Rear drive remains a question mark, as the new convertible could shift to front-wheel-drive. Apparently a retractable hard-top is also being considered.
When all's said and done, a front-drive, four-seat, hard-top Acura doesn't sound like it would be much like the lightweight, rear-drive, two-seat, rag-top Honda at all. The S2000 was never a mass-market automobile, always consigned to the niche, but a luxury coupe-cabrio might be just what Acura needs to bolster its line-up. At that point, however, can you really call it an S2000 successor?
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