If you take a look at the Honda range as a whole you will find a great many practical examples of normal family transport. Even something as way-out as the Civic Type-R is an unusual blip in a generally quite sober line-up. But the greatest exception to the rule - greater even than the hot Civic - is the S2000 sports car, which is about as manic a piece of kit as you will find in the portfolio of any major manufacturer.The S2000 has been spruced up for the 2004 model year, though most of the improvements are hidden from view. Externally, the most obvious updates are a triple-beam headlamp set-up (as found on the latest Civics, for example) and a similar three-lens arrangement of the rear lights. The rear bumper assembly has also been updated, and there has been some rethinking of the logos, but the basic shape is effectively untouched.So is the essential concept of the car. The heart of the matter is the two-litre VTEC engine, which is not found in quite this form in any other Honda. It produces 237bhp, giving a power-to-capacity ratio which places it firmly in race car territory, and perhaps more importantly it is very cleverly positioned. The S2000 layout is what has come to be described, rather oddly, as "front mid-engined". In other words the entire unit sits behind the front wheels - very good news indeed for weight distribution and an excellent basis for sporty handling.The engine is not news in itself, but it's worth drawing attention to the way it behaves. The VTEC system fills in what would otherwise be an enormous gap in the lower reaches of the rev range, making the S2000 a relatively benign road car when it's being driven slowly. But the engine produces its maximum torque at an astronomical 7500rpm, and that 237bhp isn't achieved until 8300. In other words, it is exactly what it sounds like as the revcounter tells you you're reaching the giddy heights of 9000rpm - a true screamer which works at its best when it is spinning as fast as it can.All this is precisely as it was for the first-generation S2000. For the revised version, Honda felt the need to pay a lot of attention both to body stiffness (new braces have appeared all over the chassis) and to damping rates. The front shock absorbers are stiffer than before, the rears are softer, and there is also a smaller rear anti-roll bar.The quoted reason for the suspension work is to improve steering feel. On that subject, the power assistance has also been revised, but this is still not the S2000's strongest suit. It's much easier to feel what the front end is doing through the seat of your pants than through the steering wheel itself.Honda is less inclined to refer to improved rear end grip, though the damping and anti-roll bar modifications can hardly have been implemented for any other purpose. Sure enough, traction is very good indeed, though it's possible on country roads for the rear end to ease out of line as the body starts to lean.This happened to me just once, and it's a tribute to how controllable the chassis is that I could regard it as an almost total non-event. Although the slide happened very suddenly, the slightest alteration to the steering sorted things out straight away, and my reaction afterwards was along the lines of, "My goodness, we were sideways for a moment there - ah, well, no problem."The significant point is that the engine was running at around 6000rpm at the time (I'd kept the car in second gear when third might have been a more appropriate option). The VTEC unit was therefore approaching the part of the rev range where it does its most serious work. It was a signal that the best way to tackle corners on public roads with an S2000 is to keep the engine well below optimum revs and let the chassis do all the work.This way you can enjoy the handling when you're going round corners and enjoy the tremendous acceleration, the howling engine note and in particular the fabulous gearchange (now improved by the use of carbonfibre components in the synchromesh) when you reach a long straight.On a race circuit - and there can be few cars more suitable for a trackday - you can use both at once, as long as you're prepared to slide round most of the corners. For road use, though, it's best to treat the S2000 as two separate cars (a circuit racer and a dragster, if you like). Personally I find this a little unsatisfying; I'd rather have less power and be able to use it more fully, but each to their own.The 2004 revamp includes an attempt to generate more interior space, but the S2000 is still not a car that can be driven in absolute comfort by anyone over six feet in height. Being about three inches taller that, I couldn't get myself far enough away from the major controls, and would really need a more compact race seat.The general lack of space also means there is no room for decent instrumentation, and Honda's rather unfortunate solution to this has been to fit a very small, very sharply-angled digital display unit whose graphics might have looked vaguely cool in 1981 but at no time since. The display comes as a dreadful shock in a car costing £26,513, and it's probably best to consider that you pay most of that for a quite superb engine, very good handling and smart styling, with the instrumentation thrown in as a free gift.You can in fact pay £1000 more than the above figure for an S2000 if you go for the GT option, which simply adds a hardtop and various associated gubbins to the basic spec. The test car, though, was a roadster version, with a powered roof which folds up (or fits into position) within six seconds of you pressing the button. Honda is quite chuffed with that statistic, though you also have to spend a little time releasing (or applying) two catches at the top of the windscreen at the start (or finish) of the process.Further improvements for the new model year include heated door mirrors, a microwave-based intrusion-detection system and additional 30W speakers in the seat headrests, for those occasions when you might want to listen to some music while driving. Whatever you have in your CD collection, though, it's unlikely to match the cry of an S2000 heading towards the revlimiter, heard at close quarters. Engine 1997cc, 4 cylinders Power 237bhp Transmission 6-speed manual Fuel/CO2 28.5mpg / 237g/km Acceleration 0-62mph: 6.2 seconds Top speed 150mph Price £26,513 Details correct at publicaton date
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