BigSilverEstate
Active Member
- Joined
- Apr 24, 2012
- Messages
- 474
- Location
- London
- Car
- 2011 E350cdi Sport Estate, and the wife's car: 2008 Audi A4 Avant 2.0tdi
Hello everyone
Apologies in advance for long post!
I have managed to get provisional authorisation to trade in SWMBO's car, which is not getting very much use, and get myself something as a weekend toy. With a bit of a cash top up my budget is around £8,000 and the criteria are:
- Manual gearbox
- Quicker (or at least perceived to be quicker) in a straight line than the family barge so sub 7s 0-60
- normally aspirated petrol engine
- Suitable in more or less stock form for occasional track / handling day driving.
- Not a money pit in terms of maintenance, likely total failure, depreciation etc
- 4 seats would be a bonus but not crucial
So far I have looked at:
- MX5 but the mk2 1.8 I drove just felt slow/underpowered to me
- RX8 which I liked and ticks a number of boxes including 4 seats. However given the rate of depreciation and risk of engine failure on these, the only way into ownership that I think is remotely economic is to get one with engine failure and have it rebuilt with a warranty on the engine. I suspect I lack the time or skills to find an appropriate donor car and make this work.
- 350z which I also liked (probably the front runner at the mo) though the example I saw was below budget and a bit tired. They are rather big in the flesh though - not sure they are an ideal track day car.
Other contenders not yet viewed:
- 986 Boxster (but at this price point they are leggy and I'm worried by IMS failure stories and Porsche garage costs)
- S1 Elise (prob the ideal car but my money only buys something very old - reliability?)
- Z4 3.0 (def possibility as SWMBO likes the look of them).
- Caterfield (would love one of these but I am right at the bottom of the price range and don't really have anywhere to keep one)
- E46 M3 (though I doubt the 8k examples meet the money pit test!)
The big question is, rather than all these RWD sports cars, would I be better off in terms of smiles getting a FWD hot hatch / supermini? My budget would get quite a lot of fast Renault Clio / Fiesta etc and they would presumably cost me less to track in terms of tyres, brakes etc.
So you can see I haven't done a great job narrowing it down yet and am in a bit of a mess!
Apologies in advance for long post!
I have managed to get provisional authorisation to trade in SWMBO's car, which is not getting very much use, and get myself something as a weekend toy. With a bit of a cash top up my budget is around £8,000 and the criteria are:
- Manual gearbox
- Quicker (or at least perceived to be quicker) in a straight line than the family barge so sub 7s 0-60
- normally aspirated petrol engine
- Suitable in more or less stock form for occasional track / handling day driving.
- Not a money pit in terms of maintenance, likely total failure, depreciation etc
- 4 seats would be a bonus but not crucial
So far I have looked at:
- MX5 but the mk2 1.8 I drove just felt slow/underpowered to me
- RX8 which I liked and ticks a number of boxes including 4 seats. However given the rate of depreciation and risk of engine failure on these, the only way into ownership that I think is remotely economic is to get one with engine failure and have it rebuilt with a warranty on the engine. I suspect I lack the time or skills to find an appropriate donor car and make this work.
- 350z which I also liked (probably the front runner at the mo) though the example I saw was below budget and a bit tired. They are rather big in the flesh though - not sure they are an ideal track day car.
Other contenders not yet viewed:
- 986 Boxster (but at this price point they are leggy and I'm worried by IMS failure stories and Porsche garage costs)
- S1 Elise (prob the ideal car but my money only buys something very old - reliability?)
- Z4 3.0 (def possibility as SWMBO likes the look of them).
- Caterfield (would love one of these but I am right at the bottom of the price range and don't really have anywhere to keep one)
- E46 M3 (though I doubt the 8k examples meet the money pit test!)
The big question is, rather than all these RWD sports cars, would I be better off in terms of smiles getting a FWD hot hatch / supermini? My budget would get quite a lot of fast Renault Clio / Fiesta etc and they would presumably cost me less to track in terms of tyres, brakes etc.
So you can see I haven't done a great job narrowing it down yet and am in a bit of a mess!