“You have a Honda S2000?! Those cars are going up in value” are words that I have heard over and over during the past four years that I have owned my car. Of course, the value of my 2008 Honda S2000 has been something that’s been on the back of my mind. But I’ve never given it too much thought because I plan to keep the car as long as humanly possible and enjoy it for what it is.

But sometimes, curiosity gets the best of me and I wonder what my car is really worth and if it is indeed going up in value. In order to scratch my curious itch, I got my S2000 appraised by Carmax and Carvana recently and the offers were surprising.

Apparently, Carvana likes my Honda S2000

As a little back story, I bought my Honda S2000 back in 2017 for $24,000. That price might sound a little high to you, especially considering that the car retailed for around $31,000 when it was new back in 2008. However, it only had 49,000 miles on the odometer and was painted in the highly-coveted Laguna Blue Pearl, so the private dealer that sold it to me knew what he had.

Fast forward to September 2020, I was working on selling my leased 2019 Subaru Forester Sport and ended up getting it appraised by and selling it to Carvana. But while I was on the site, I decided to have them appraise my S2000, just to see what kind of offer I could get.

At the time, with a little over 86,000 miles on the clock, Carvana appraised it at $14,000. That was a decent number, but there’s no way I would ever sell it for that much.

Fast forward again March 2021 (earlier this week), and I appraised it through Carvana again, this time with 86,565 miles on the odometer. To my surprise, Carvana came back with an instant appraisal of $17,756. That means my car went up in value by over $3,000 in six months.

Try doing that with your Toyota Corolla!

Carmax likes my S2000 even more

I couldn’t just take Carvana’s word for it, though. So I checked with Vroom as well, but they only offered $14,000. So I figured I would complete the trifecta of used-car value appraisals and set up an appointment with Carmax to see what they would offer me for my trusty blue pocket rocket.

If you have never had your car appraised at Carmax, I highly recommend it. The process was super simple and I was in and out within 25 minutes. The Carmax associate simply looked over my car, took a bunch of pictures of it, and then did some research to figure out a value for it.

“We don’t see these too often, especially in Colorado,” she said, as she walked back into the building. I took a look around the lot and noticed the rows of Ford F-150s and Jeeps they had available. She’s right, my car stuck out like a sore thumb.

When the Carmax associate came back, she handed me the offer: $18,000.

“What do you think?” she asked. I wanted to say, “That’s awesome!” But I told her I would think about it and let her know.

Am I going to sell my S2000?

Nope. I’d rather wait another 10 years and see what the market is like then. Keep in mind that S2000 CR’s have sold recently to the tune of $50,000 to $70,000 and regular S2000s similar to mine are easily selling in the $20,000 range in private party sales.

As far as I can tell, its value can only go up from here, so there’s no reason for me to sell it to Carmax, only for them to turn around and sell it at auction (due to its age). That would be a shame.

But if you have the means, I would suggest you buy an S2000. Apparently, they’re increasing in value.