Honda boss Takahiro Hachigo has not ruled out the firm launching a successor to its S2000 sports cars.
“As of today, I cannot say clearly that S2000 will be reinvented as further studies are necessary,” Hachigo said at the Tokyo motor show.
Honda has launched three new performance cars in recent years, each a reinvention of a previous mode: the S660 kei car in Japan, the Civic Type R hot hatch and the Honda NSX supercar. At this year’s Tokyo motor show, Honda has previewed a future electric sports car with the Sports EV concept.
Tokyo motor show 2017 - live coverage
Hachigo was surprisingly open in discussing whether or not a new S2000 would join that stable of performance models. He said the firm always wanted to “pose new models with the joy of driving”, and had a strong history of doing so. Autocar reported in 2015 that the company was developing a new S2000 as a Mazda MX-5 rival.
He said Honda’s priority was to create “evolutions of all three types of performance cars we have now for next generations”.
Beyond that, he appeared open to the idea of an S2000 making a comeback: “I’ve already heard many voices expressing they’d like a next-generation S2000. Honda development engineers are quick to develop sporty cars if the requests are there.
“All over the world – in Japan, North America, Europe, China – more and more voices are expressing the desire to reinvent S2000. However, it has not matured yet. It’s not time yet. We need time to decide if S2000 is reinvented or not.
“If the sales people investigate, look at it and they’re really enthusiastic, maybe we look at it.”
The S2000 roadster was produced by Honda from 1999 until 2009.
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