OMITN. I’ve never ever felt safe in a 106/saxo vtr/s etc. granted, they don’t half handle but they scare the shit out of me

What about a prelude with the 2.2vtec engine? 200bhp. Light. Cheap to buy. Rev to 9k.

No idea if they’re any good but the 106 Rallye looks so fun.

a much debated subject at work. my brother bought a 70k mile st170 with fsh for a grand. from an engineer who works at dunton. he fitted new disks and ferodo ds2500 pads, ATE superblue fluid and replaced the one non matching tyre, sorted a couple of other niggles and took it to snetterton. great fun and absolutely zero issues. it even has ac that works. and half leather. the chassis is fantastic, bits are cheap and there are loads on ebay all the time. if you do have a disaster any old mk1 focus bumpers and doors etc will fit. and there are literally hundreds of those on ebay at any one time. the guy who sits next to me is about to buy one too.

it’s one of those or a clio 172, which is a bit of a no brainer.

As much as I love French hatchbacks I would go MX5 with a LSD.

I like the idea of a BMW 330ci mainly as I hadn’t considered one before or realised they are now this cheap. Some good shouts so far 🙂

Fiat Cinquecento, with a 1.2 punto engine (big valve head, big cam, vernier, ported head, trimmed valve guides, stainless manifold and system) It was built within your budget and a nice little fun project to play with, didn’t have the outright speed of some cars but was jolly good fun, and surprised many a badly driven better car.

Fiat coupe turbo? They can be made to go very fast.

Impreza Turbo can be had for that money, just a thought