It's called engineering. This is one of the reasons american manufacturers are falling behind year after year. Not just the S2000, but even the 99-00 Civic SI was a 1.6 liter that made 160 HP, thats 100 hp per liter. Think about it like this: if a 5.7 liter "american" car made 570 hp what would the asking price be? $75,000-$100,000? More? The answer would be YES, they just cannot beat a car that came off the showroom floor, (S2000) that has a 2.0 liter and makes 120hp per liter.