Power House Amuse is, without question, one of the premier tuning companies in Japan, and the Honda S2000 is still widely regarded today as one of the best sports cars ever made. Suffice it to say then, that the Amuse tuned S2000 GT1 Turbo is something to behold, but what makes it truly special is that it might well be the company's magnum opus.
Quite a thing to say, isn't it, when you consider that Amuse doesn't shy away from much: they'll prep Chasers, GT-Rs, and even Fits for a variety of situations, be it a winding mountain pass or a paved racing circuit, even clinching some records as they go. As the sole representative of Amuse in this game, the S2000 GT1 Turbo seemingly encompasses that spirit of versatility as a true jack of all trades, and perhaps even a master of some. An Amuse backed S2000 wearing a very similar body kit, dubbed the "S2300 GT-1", battled the RE Amemiya μ Boost Up 7 in the final round of Hot Version's 2006 round of the "Strongest Legends of the Mountain Pass, Decisive Battle of the Demon Lords" tournament, handing the Amemiya FD its first loss and ultimately battling it to a dead heat—quite the feat, considering the Amuse was down on power to the FD, packing "only" 320PS at that time, which would almost double by the time it appeared in 2010's Gran Turismo 5 in the form we know it today.
Even back in the car's 2006 appearance, the car was already sporting its trademark fully red interior, seemingly designed for a colour blind person or literally Satan himself. It's WAY too loud for my tastes, but the fact that it hasn't been gutted completely to reduce mass truly sets Amuse apart from most other tuner shops. When I said that the S2000 GT1 was a Jack of all trades, that included daily driving on the street as well! What I especially love about the air–conditioned hellscape that is the GT1's interior is the boost pressure gauge: It's a display consisting of seven–segment LCD readouts that closely resemble the car's original digital speedometer still present in this car, making it look almost like an OE item. It's even synchronised with the speedometer's refresh rate! I don't know why, but it's little geeky things like that that get me, and no one expects these charming quirks in a serious business, all out time attack car.
Rather than stripping the interior of creature comforts, where Amuse has shaved mass from the car is in the body panels; they've replaced pretty much every panel with the stuff of woven black magic that is carbon fibre, to the point where the only panels that resemble the stock car are the doors and A pillar. So effective was this closetry transformation that, despite the car carrying heavily reinforced drivetrain components under its hee–YUUUGE widened body, the car weighs in lighter than a stock S2K at a mere 1,120kg (2,469lbs), a fact that's even more astounding when you consider the fact that Amuse hasn't gutted the interior, the most obvious place to trim fat from a time attack car. But then again, would you expect any different from a company obsessively anorexic enough to make a street legal R34 lighter than its GT500 counterpart?
It's past this point that the story gets a little blurry, and not just from all the tears from the passing of the company's founder, Tanabe Hideki, before he could finalise this S2000.
So far, the only legitimate looking information source I could find detailing the S2000 GT1 is Dino Dalle Carbonare's article on Speedhunters, in which it is stated that car's engine and drivetrain were reinforced to handle more power, and that the F20C engine, stroked out to 2.3 litres, could take a turbo to take things further, but no matter how hard I looked, I can't find a single instance of the car in real life pumping out the 616HP that Gran Turismo games claim it has, nor could I find a single car rocking that distinctive bare carbon bonnet with the ridiculous V–shaped vent in real life. In that same article, it's stated that the plan was to then hook up that 550HP turbocharged F20C engine to a sequential 6 speed gearbox, replacing the stick shift the car had retained up to that point. In–game, the car's description claims it has a 7 speed sequential, while in gameplay, it has a 7 speed manual. The exact specs of this car just seem all over the place, and I have no idea which is accurate, or if there's even an S2000 that exists in this state of tune. I can't imagine anyone kitting out their S2K to look like this to be a shy individual, either.
I opine though, that no S2000 should have come with anything close to the 616HP we wound up getting, wide body kit or not.
The most obvious sign of this is the gearing of that seven speed gearbox: the ratios in practice feel completely unchanged from those of a stock S2000's, which put out a mere 250PS (247HP, 184kW) in its most powerful AP1 generation. 2nd gear is barely good enough for 100km/h, and you'll be sniffing the limiter of 4th just going over Japan's self imposed speed limit of 180km/h (112mph). Those are short and sweet ratios for a 247HP car, but giving these ratios to a carbon draped, semi slick shod, fire breathing, 616HP capable winged beast is like giving Usain Bolt a wheelchair, thinking it'd help him go faster in the same vein it helps poor Sally get around better, when in actuality, it just slows him down. To give you an idea of what it's like in practice, you'll be redlining 6th gear at the end of Mountain Straight on Bathurst, and shifting up to 7th well before the timing gantry roughly halfway down Conrod Straight. Ironically, because the ratios are set up for a car with much less power and speed, they actually fit Tsukuba to a T, but the car as a whole feels suffocated by any track that lets it stretch its legs less than Spa, i.e. most racetracks in the world. Drivers of the GT1 Turbo will have to shift as if they've just landed a starring role in a Fast & Furious movie just to get to the shops and back.
As such, lugging the car out of tighter turns is almost a necessity simply to survive, much less take something resembling that of a racing line. One would think that turbocharging the nuts off a 2.3L engine to eke out 269HP per litre from every atom of its deeply tortured soul would induce turbo lag akin to streaming free porn on public Wi-Fi, along with a power curve sharp enough to skin paint off the car's mostly carbon fibre bodywork, and even modern GT500 race cars like the 2016 Raybrig NSX that have similar specific output numbers are no exception to that trend. While that mortifying spot where you get all of that 616HP does lie just 1,000rpm away from the car's redline of 9,000rpm, the power curve that builds up to that point is surprisingly linear and useable, and there is no perceptible lag at all when punching it from mid range. It really is a blessing that the engine is so miraculously receptive of being lugged, given the horrifically short gearing on this car.
The main reason why I say this car ought not to have come with as much power as it now has is, of course, its handling. Based off the first generation AP1 S2000 judging by its non–LED tail lights, the stock car wasn't even offered with the option of traction control, and I haven't come across any mention of the car coming with an aftermarket TCS in my trawl through the internet. So, to reiterate: more power than a GT500 machine, very similar gearing to a stock S2000, and (most likely...) NO TRACTION CONTROL. There is lots and lots I can praise about the handling of the car, such as the downforce actually preventing the car from catching air at high speed spots where most production cars with its power figures would have lifted, how it's one of the very few, if not only road cars in GTS to not come default with Sport Hard tyres, instead coming with Sport Softs, and how its wide body, strong brakes, and soft tyres all work in conjunction to make this car one of the very few road cars that can actually stop well from speed. While all that is true, it somehow feels disingenuous to properly mention because all I'm thinking when behind the wheel is, "HOLY SHIT, HOLY SHIT, HOLY FUCKING SHIT!" from trying to keep the car from spinning out. It's a good thing my reviews are in written form, because I don't know how much usable footage I'd have from all that constant swearing if I had to review this in video. It's not just me, either—everyone present during race day, regardless of skill or assists, were having incident after incident with the car. It simply has way too much power for its own good.
And don't even think any of its 616HP even needs to come on for the car to break sideways! On hard braking, the car gives a very eerily distinct, yet impalpable sensation that the rear end is a hair trigger away from breaking sideways, almost like I was getting gaslit by a car. Turn the steering wheel too hard in this state, and the laden front tyres completely out–grip the unladen rears, swinging out the rear end violently without any of the 616HP even coming into play, and that's just ultra counter–intuitive as someone who hasn't spent the last fifty years driving exclusively 911s. According to Dino's article, the car wears 265/35R18 Bridgestone Potenza RE-01R rubber at all four corners, and you could argue that this is personal preference, but it baffles my broken mind how one could give 616HP to a FR car and not stagger its tyres. Even Vipers, world renowned for their mortifying handling and immense power, come with narrower tyres up front and thicker rubber in the rear to prevent this exact scenario. And no one at Amuse thought an FR car with 1.82kg/HP needed this? Maybe this tail happiness under braking is intentional to help the car get rotated in a tight track like Tsukuba, but I've always found it impossible to drift in this game with its wonk as hell tyre model, and thus that tail happiness on turn–in is just disruptive and hazardous in my hands.
A very capable car demanding a corresponding level of skill from its driver isn't much of a knock against the car; if anything, it's more of a knock against the driver for not being able to match their car's capabilities. But does the Amuse S2K GT1 Turbo have to be this difficult to drive? What better way to find out than a comparison test... against a bona fide GT1 racing car?
No, I don't claim to be the most sane person in the room, but at least hear me out, okay?
On paper, I have made every attempt at disadvantaging my Aston Martin DBR9 GT1 in this test: I've downgraded from the full racing slick tyres the car originally came with to grooved Sport Soft tyres to match the compounds shoeing the Amuses, and did NOTHING to the suspension to compensate. The racecar is originally a set of titanium balls lighter than the tuner special, weighing in at 1,100kg versus 1,120kg (2,425lbs vs 2,469lbs), and rather than ask Vic to lower the minimum mass requirement to run the comparison car stock like I always do, I thought I'd just bring on board my own set for once to increase the Aston's mass to 102% to let it clear (and negligibly outweigh) the minimum mass requirement set to the Amuse's 1,120kg. As for the power, the racecar is shockingly less powerful than the street legal thing you can buy and drive on public roads: 600HP versus 616, and with only six forward gears to work it with in comparison to the Amuse's seven forward, zero chill cogs.
In short, I was running an overweight, underpowered, and maladjusted racing car against the tuner special, and I still beat the fastest Amuse by ~3 seconds a lap around Red Bull Ring despite that. Even on gimped road tyres the car was never set up for, the DBR9 put down power a lot cleaner and a lot more linearly than the S2K. It stopped better, it turned better, and thanks to the seamless shifting of the sequential box, I actually had a slight advantage on the straights as well despite the power deficit. The Aston just felt better put together and nowhere as clumsy as the Amuse, while doing everything the S2K could do better. Hell, this entire paragraph was so dry and "duh" even I felt bad for writing it. Almost as bad as I felt for my unsportsmanlike act of bringing a racecar to a street meet.
All of which leads me nicely to the simple point I took a rather convoluted and bloody route to make: I don't like the S2000 GT1 Turbo, simply because I think it went too far for a street car.
Despite looking like it'd fit right in with a field of GT500 cars, the GT1 Turbo doesn't even have anywhere near the levels of downforce a GT1 car has, and that to me just feels like a bad tease. I'll admit to being spoiled silly by the suite of race cars in this game, but that's also the biggest reason why I don't like the GT1 Turbo: it looks like a poser. And, forgive me for saying this, but I think the GT1 kit looks ridiculous on the S2000. I can easily tell the DBR9 is a DB9 from a quick glance, but the GT1 Turbo hardly even resembles an S2000 from some angles. Even though its interior is intact with creature comforts, I wouldn't want to be seen on the streets rocking a car that looks like this. It sacrifices ground clearance, ride quality, the purity of an NA engine, the accessible handling of an S2000, its inoffensive looks—in essence shedding most of its identifying qualities—just to chase a goal it's never going to attain. A street legal car just isn't going to perform on the same level as a racing car. And because of that, the more they strive to look and perform like a racecar, the more they look like posers to me, ironically enough. And no, this is not just an issue the Amuse S2000 GT1 Turbo has—I feel the same way for every tuner car out there.
(The Amemiya FD vs Atenza Gr.4 comparison from last week is the exception to prove how awful the latter is, don't @ me.)
I don't want my road cars to try to be a race car, in the same vein as me not wanting my racecar to come with sat nav and seating for five, because neither is ever going to come close to being the other, and the harder you try to bridge that gap, the more compromised the car becomes, ending up almost as a parody or a caricature of the thing it's trying to be. There are good things about a road car to appreciate too, you know? I like being able to go over speed humps not worrying about destroying a front lip or shredding my underbody. I like having some semblance of fuel economy in them. I like being able to park my car and walk away without demanding the attention of everyone within a 50 mile radius. I like my S2000s slow. I like them when I can push them. I like them looking inconspicuous. I like their impeccable balance. I like them when they aren't threatening to put me in a wheelchair every time I brake a bit hard. I like them when I'm not afraid of them. And if the price to pay for all that is going slow? Pfft, it's not even a choice worth deliberating in my head. If I want to go fast, I'll just go drive a racecar instead of trying to make my road car handle like one, failing miserably.
I like my tuner cars to build upon the base car's strengths, curb a few of their faults, and make it even more enjoyable to drive while keeping its character intact, like the aforementioned RE Amemiya μ Boost Up 7, or even the Amuse S2000 R1 that was in previous games. If you're going to put this insane amount of work into a car to radically transform it beyond all recognition, what difference does it make if all that effort went into a Honda S2000 or a Proton Saga? They all just become soulless, uncontrollable racecar wannabes.
I suppose if you're into role playing or cruising lobbies in these games, the Amuse S2K might make sense; you pay Porsche GT3 money for something much more unique, packing performance that far eclipses anything you can buy in a showroom staffed by people in suits or anything carrying roof lights. I can definitely see a highway cruise with friends being a blast with it. If you're looking to cheese N class or road car events, this car is completely unbeatable... IF you can handle it. Me personally? I'm steering WAY clear away from this thing and praying instead for the R1 S2000 to make a comeback from previous games.
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