HONDA S2000 - An illustrious heritage

HONDA S2000 effectively combines two strands of Honda's heritage. The company has an exemplary tradition in sportscars from the original S500 to the current NSX and a global reputation for excellence in motorsport, both in the Formula 1 World Championship - where it has taken six constructors' championships between 1983 and 1992 - and the American CART series where Honda-powered drivers have won the coveted title for the past three seasons.

As a spiritual successor to the S500-600 sports cars launched by Honda in the 1960s and culminating in the S800, it was only natural that this brand new roadster should be named the HONDA S2000, with the '2000' referring to the cubic capacity of its extraordinary engine.

It's a link that extends beyond just badging, however, and a remarkably similar ethos spans the 34 years separating the two cars.

Both the Honda S800 and HONDA S2000 are lightweight two seater sports cars powered by high revving engines adopting unconventional engineering. Just as company founder Soichiro Honda was moved to comment that he "didn't want to build a car like everyone else's" when questioned about his radical early sportscars, so HONDA S2000 chief engineer Shigeru Uehara and his team chose to seek new approaches to high performance sportscar design - not for the sake of being different, but to use elegant engineering solutions to produce a performance engine of the highest efficiency and boasting excellent emissions performance.


The S800: thinking the unconventional

Honda had been in business 15 years and was already extremely well established as a motorcycle manufacturer when it introduced its first cars at the 1963 Tokyo Motor Show. The S360 and S500 - 'S' standing for 'sports'- were miniature sports cars with a front engine, rear-wheel drive configuration, but manufactured with a new precision.

Power for the S360 came from an intoxicating, aluminium hemi-head 360 cc four cylinder engine, developing 33 PS at the remarkably high speed of 9,000 rpm. It also featured a roller bearing crank and twin overhead camshafts, while a Keihin carburettor for each of its four cylinders was a legacy of Honda's racing motorcycles. To ensure a particularly low bonnet line the little engine was canted over at an angle of 45 degrees.

The remarkable specification included a five speed gearbox which transmitted power to the wheels via separate chains whose oil baths formed trailing arms for the independent springing. On early models the rev counter read up to 14,000 rpm.

Although the S360 never went into full production and the 531 cc S500 was made only until 1964, they were replaced in that year with the evolutionary 606 cc S600 offered in both fastback coupe and open 2-seater bodystyles. Denny Hulme even drove an S600 to a class win in the 1965 ADAC 600 Kms endurance race at the Nürburgring.

The S800, the ultimate S-series sports car, made its debut at the 1965 Tokyo Motor Show. This automotive classic had independent front suspension with wishbones and torsion bars, precise rack and pinion steering and a box-section ladder frame, cross-braced chassis. The unique chain drive would later be replaced by a conventional live rear axle and the five speed gearbox by a four.

Despite a capacity of only 791 cc, the engine generated an amazing (for the time) 71 PS at 8,000 rpm, revving safely to 10,000 rpm.

That equated to 90 PS per litre, yet the engine was a model of smoothness and refinement, ran on low octane fuel and had the potential for 160 km/h.

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