Where did you find this S2000?
I bought it three years ago from a guy in Dubai. He was the first owner and used it as a weekend track car, and it was babied from day one. I sourced it from the Honda s2ki.com website through a gentleman called Umair Khan; he is the Honda guruin Dubai.
I used to have an Integra Type-R in the UK. There was a guy in my apartment block with an S2000, and I used to be so jealous even though the Type-R was an awesome car. I have driven Hondas for seven years and Japanese cars for 10.
It's gone through a few engines, right?
The original owner blew the first one on the track through oil starvation. He got a built 2.2-litre imported from the US which blew last year during some spirited driving. I got the current engine, a 2.0-litre Vtec, from a JDM import and had it fitted by the guys at Lap57 in Sharjah. It has over 220bhp and revs to 9,000rpm.
What exactly have you done to it?
It's a long list which includes a Spoon widened throttle body, stage three port and polished intake manifold, J's Racing exhaust manifold and de-cat test pipe, Mugen full titanium exhaust, short throw shifter, Spoon adjustable coilover suspension, Volk Racing 18in alloys, a complete roof change to the later model type with a glass window (original was plastic), OEM front lip and last but not least, colour-coded callipers.
Swapping the roof must have been tough...
It took about nine hours and involved removing basically every internal panel in the car apart from the dash. I got half way through and realised one person couldn't lift the roof out, so I had to get a friend to come round to help, it was so heavy.
And how does it drive now?
With the racing clutch, it's pretty tough on the legs in traffic, and when you try to getit valet-parked, the guys can't move it.
With the suspension so low and stiff, roadworks can get a bit bumpy, but in general it's a great car to drive every day.
It's quick, has no body roll and canout-handle pretty much anything on the roads here.
Any future plans to improve performance?
I have a few tweaks still to make to the exterior and interior, but a Vortec supercharger would see a big hike in power. I just need to convince my wife.
Must be great driving this with the roof down in the evening…
I go about eight months of the year hardly putting the roof up. In the summer I only have it down at night, and blast the ACto keep cool.
It gets lots of attention. It's very different to most two seater convertibles here, so a lot of people look because they wonder what it is as it's so rare. I have come back to my car a few times to find people taking pictures of it and posing next to it.
I like the fact that people don't view you in the same light as maybe Porsche or BMW drop-top drivers — that is, posers.
Where do you like to drive it most?
Anywhere with plenty of bends. I am definitely going to go to the mountains this spring as this car was built for roads like that.
I drove to Fujairah last year and that was huge fun.
What's the dream car?
A Honda NSX. They're even more special than the S2000 and can shame cars costing three times as much.
But if money was no object, I'd like an Aston Vantage convertible in candy red.It's possibly the best-looking car in the world right now. I'd love to have deep pockets and modify one.
Bio
- Name Paul Dennis
- Job Director of Golf at The Montgomerie Dubai
- From Bristol, England
- Wheels 2001 Honda S2000
- In the UAE Four years
