The Mazda RX-8 Is The Sports Car Everyone Wants The Honda S2000 To Be

It’s an unfortunate fact of life that reality is occasionally cruel. Sometimes the poster car is met with a litany of caveats, a rift between in-period legend and actual experience. Sometimes the less obvious choice is pleasantly surprising, meeting or even exceeding the high praise it warranted when it was new. Consider this be a tale of two sports cars, the iconic Honda S2000 and the somewhat unloved Mazda RX-8.

Let me preface this by saying I respect the hell out of the Honda S2000. As an engineering exercise, especially from a brand that hadn’t built a front-engined rear-wheel-drive sports car in decades, it resulted in some astonishing figures and electrifying force when you really had the hammer down. However, the other 80 percent of the time, I’ve found every example I’ve driven to be asleep at the wheel.

It starts with the early two-liter engine known for its prodigal redline and occasionally clowned-upon torque output of 153 lb.-ft. What people seem to forget is that it didn’t make peak torque until an enormous 7,500 rpm. The later 2.2-liter F22C engine attempted to rectify this, but it didn’t quite go far enough. While an increase of nine lb.-ft. is appreciable, the torque peak only dropped to 6,800 rpm, and fuel cut fell from 9,000 rpm to a comparatively modest 8,200 rpm. As a result, no matter which S2000 variant you choose, all their powertrains are underwhelming unless you’re absolutely on it.

However, power delivery is only one facet of a sports car. After all, the Mazda MX-5 is the best-selling sports car of all time, and nobody would accuse it of being all ate up with motor. A proper sports car has to indulge your senses, and while the S2000 has a sublime shifter and that wind-in-your-hair appeal, it doesn’t talk to your fingertips. The dialogue between the contact patches of the front tires and the driver’s hands is part of what makes a sports car trustworthy and engaging, but the electric power steering in the S2000 does its best to lock that out, with little feedback making its way through the steering wheel. As a result, it’s a car you drive more reactively than you would a Miata or a Porsche Boxster, finding yourself more frequently on the far side of the tires’ optimal grip peak.

This is a little less optimal in AP1 models, as they developed a bit of a reputation for bumpsteer due in part to the toe curves of the rear suspension. This characteristic was improved on the later AP2 cars, but it’s still incredibly easy to see why so many of these roadsters end up with questionable Carfax reports. For those who’ve never been on track or taken a car control course, the combination of twitchy limit handling and quite uncommunicative steering could be quite nasty.

Then there’s the fact that the driving position isn’t quite spot-on. I’m 5’10”-ish tall with a 30-inch inseam, which is pretty damn average for a man. Despite this, I sit weirdly high in an S2000, and the reach to the fixed steering wheel isn’t ideal. The end result is a sports car that’s excessively singular, a weapon when you’re on it, curiously aloof when you’re not, and one that doesn’t exactly make the best learning tool in the world. Happily, there is a Japanese sports car from the 2000s that offers a sky-high redline while making up for some of the traits the S2000 lacks. The weird part is, a lot of people seem to hate it.

I’m talking about the Mazda RX-8. Sure, it might not be a convertible, but on the surface, it seems to feature several things that made the S2000 an instant icon. The six-port Renesis two-rotor engine in early manual models revs to that legendary 9,000 rpm mark, and although it might be down six horsepower over an F20C-powered S2000, it makes six more lb.-ft. of torque at a comparatively more reasonable 5,500 rpm. Add in a similarly bolt-action shifter, and the result is a much more accessible power band than in the S2000.

According to Honda, the curb weight of a 2004 S2000 — the more common AP2 model — clocks in 2,835 pounds. This means it actually weighs about the same as a period Porsche Boxster, which totes around two extra cylinders, an extra trunk, and almost eight inches more length. Comparatively, a 3,029-pound 2004 RX-8 isn’t preposterously heavier, especially when you think of how much extra car it comes with. Rear seats, two extra half-doors, a better sound system, a metal roof, larger alloy wheels that you can stuff bigger brakes behind, you know the drill.

Crucially, the RX-8 doesn’t feel 194 pounds heavier than an S2000, partly because it’s heavily related to the third-generation MX-5, partly because it, like the S2000, is front-mid-engined, and partly because it actually talks to you like you’re hoping it will. Despite also sporting electric power steering, Mazda’s hardware and calibration gives the driver of an RX-8 a brilliant feel for what’s going on, from effort building naturally with load to better feedback of camber changes in the road.

I’ve been lucky enough to drive several RX-8s including Mazda’s own heritage fleet 2010 Touring model, and they’re all instantly joyous. The driving position is excellent, the engine is revvy yet surprisingly tractable, the chassis breathes with the road, and while the car’s eager to rotate, the steering gives you a ton of warning before the rear tires actually let go. As a result, the S2000 is engaging on some drives, when the traffic’s a whisper and the roads turn curvy and you can really wind the powertrain out, but the RX-8 is engaging on every drive, even if you’re just running out for takeout.

Now of course, we have to mention the elephant in the room, Renesis reliability. Sure, a loved RX-8 will require an engine rebuild at some point, and you will have to put up with rotary engine peculiarities such as oil consumption and not wanting to shut the engine off when cold for fear of flooding the engine, and the big end result is extra car and attention and needing to keep a few grand in the bank for the inevitable rebuild. However, compared to a nice S2000, a nice RX-8 is cheap. Cheap enough to easily make up the difference of one, possibly even two rotary engine rebuilds. Looking on Bring A Trailer, the price range of nice S2000s is between $20,000 and $35,000, while a solid-looking RX-8 will run you between $6,000 and $15,000.

So, if you want an engaging, communicative Japanese sports car that revs to 9,000 rpm, give the Mazda RX-8 a try. It might not have a legendary reputation, but it genuinely feels legendary. Worth trading the wind-in-your-hair feel for? In my eyes, absolutely.

Top graphic images: Honda; Mazda; depositphotos.com

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