The Honda S2000 Has The Best Startup Sequence
How do you start your car? Is it a push button with a proximity key, a standard key that you turn, or that weird thing BMW did for a while where you have to put the fob in the dash before the button will work? Well, regardless of your answer, your car is boring to start — unless you own a Honda S2000.
The Honda S2000 has the best starting sequence of any production car, and in fact I'd argue that it's the only car that's good to start. To get an S2k running, there's a whole process: Insert key, check for neutral gear, turn key, depress clutch, press start button. It's complicated, obtuse, and absolutely perfect.
Have you ever seen a fully built race car start with just a key or a button? No! They have switch panels for master power, fuel, ECU power, and the starter. Do fighter jets power on with a proximity key? Absolutely not! They've got approximately 80,000 switches that need to be flipped in the precise right order before you can start buzzing the tower. Or, in an F35, before you can get high enough off the ground to crash.
In our modern world of touchscreen or touchless convenience, we're starved for tactility in everyday actions. Our enclosures lack enrichment, and we should thank Honda for giving us the race car start experience in a production vehicle. If every automaker did this, gave us enough buttons and switches to remind us just how complex a machine we're operating, the world would be a better place. A less convenient place, sure, but one that's more interesting and more fun to live in. The S2000 showed us the way all those years ago, and we should have listened.
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