2000 Honda S2000

In 1969, Volkswagen began producing its Type 181 "Kurierwagen," more commonly known in U.S. markets as the Thing. At first developed as a military vehicle, and soon after adapted for civilian sales, the Thing was and continues to be something of an odd duck, as its name suggests, primarily because of its weird-looking combination of boxy utility in a convertible coupe platform. An elegant, refined driver's car it is not.

There would appear to be little in common between a Thing and Honda's premiere roadster, the S2000, outside of the fact that they both have soft-tops, but Ryan Kress owns both. The VW is actually a holdover from Kress' entrance into the brotherhood of automotive fanaticism. The Placentia, Calif., resident got his start messing with durable Euros like Baja Bugs and his Thing. You can imagine our surprise, then, when we heard the owner of the beautifully crafted AP1 splashed across these pages also counts a 181 among his stable of whips.

It wasn't the first thing we expected from someone who has clearly been doing his Japanese market homework, but then Kress himself seems something of a nonconformist. Like a lot of Southern Californians, he comes across as a sort of a relaxed, dippy hippy, certainly nothing like many of the minutiae-consumed JDM fanboys we've met so far. As you'll read, his approach to tuning is just as unconventional.

Recently, we caught up with Kress over the phone and had a moment to chat about his Imola orange S2000 and how it came to be.

HT: How did you picture this project turning out? Initially did you have any idea that it would become what it has?

RK: I've always wanted to build an old-school car. I've always wanted to do like a CRX or EK or something, so I kind of took my old-school ideas and applied them toward a newer car. A newer car with an old-school twist is something I don't see a lot of people doing. Like with S2000s, a lot of people build them as "catalog" cars, they buy just one specific parts brand, and I wanted to break away from that. I wanted to do something that I thought would look cool.