Built to celebrate Honda's 50th birthday in 1999, the Honda S2000 2.0i Roadster sits between the Mazda MX-5/MG TF budget sportsters and the more glamorous Mercedes SLK/Porsche Boxster/Audi TT Roadster brigade. It is built to thrill the enthusiast (which it certainly does with a 240bhp engine that revs to 9000rpm)

This Honda S2000 2.0i Roadster is a bit of a double-edged sword. Almost all of its strengths are also, in other ways, its weaknesses.

When you buy a Honda, you know you're not getting a tempermental British or Italian thoroughbred that will require frequent and expensive visits to the shop. But at the same time, Hondas do seem to lack that certain special flair that seems only to come from companies like Ferrari and TVR whose products ask for as much understanding as they provide pleasure.

Once again, Honda proves that you can't give up the pain without sacrificing some of the joy.

That being said, it is a lovely car. Best to think of it not as a step down from Ferrari or TVR but rather as a step up from a Mazda MX5 or Toyota MR2. Seen in that light, the S2000 is very attractive indeed.

The engine is great fun with the terrier-like snarl of the four-pot sounding, to my ear anyway, as good as anything the Italians have ever built. The only thing better than being able to rev to 9000rpm is knowing that you can do it on a regular basis without tempting fate. And that's a good thing too consider how low on torque this engine is. You really have to drive this car as if you'd just stolen it to get anything approaching decent performance out of it and that does get tiring after a while.

As Honda discovered to their chagrin, torque is just as important in an engine if you want the car to feel fast as horsepower and the Honda just doesn't deliver enough - not even at peak revs.

One of the downsides of the lack of torque is that the rear-end has to be geared so low to preserve acceleration ability that the car is virtually useless as a long-distance cruiser. at 18mph/1000rpm in 6th gear, driving any kind of distance with the engine droning at a constand 4,000+revs gets old VERY quickly. It is actually a bit better with the top down because the wind noise drowns out the engine.

Also, for such a high-revving engine, the ratios are too close together, I often found myself skipping gears under hard acceleration.

So, if you want something to blast around the B-roads on sunny days that will most likely only need to visit the shop for routine service, you could do a lot worse.

The only think I really disliked about the car (apart from the gearing) was how squirrely the rear end was in the wet. I've taken TVR's through wet roudabouts with more convidence.

Honda still has some work to do here before the S2000 is the car that it could be.

Bottom line: If you're looking for a daily-driver, look hard at the Mazda MX-5. It may not have the flash appeal of the Honda's engine but is an easier car to live with for regular driving and is considerably cheaper without sacrificing build-quality or reliability.