[Closed] Suggest a fun car

Honda Integra, easy get one for that money, FUN all round, although it is slightly practical, can get a bike in the back. Love or hate thing though, personally I loved revving the tits off my CTR.

Motorcycle, assuming you've a licence. If not, don't bother. The desire for something "very nippy" and n00b-ism is a recipe for disaster...

Car wise, £10K will buy you a Elise (a v.good Mk1 with change!), and for fun, there's little better on t' road aside from the likes of Caterhams, Westfields etc.

clio trophy or rover mini cooper s.

nippy and fun. mini won't lose money either

MX5 you can pick up for £2000-3000 (best are the mk1 with the pop up lights) cheapest to run

the elise is a great car, can get an S1 with the K series for under your 10k.

But i would be looking at Caterhams if i had that money, with crossflows, vauxhall and the odd 1.6k being within your budget.

Some thing else i would consider would be TVRs - either an S series, Chimaera or Griffith.

I have a mk1 MX5 going in the trader next week if you want it. Make me an offer 😉

For £5k you'll get a mental MR2 Turbo and have £5k in the bank. Ignore all the nay-sayers who say modified cars are generally ragged to within an inch of their lives - there are a couple of very well respected MR2 owners clubs, and 99% of the cars you find on there will be tip top. There is simply no other way you can spend so little and get so much from a car: 0-60 in under 5 seconds (for a modified one) but with enough space in the boot for a fortnight's-worth of suitcases and 30-ish mpg. You can even get bike-racks for them.

Having said that, for £10k you have a lot of cars to consider. You're looking at a nice Honda S2000, a well looked after and freshly re-built RX7, a decent Integra DC5, a decent R33 Skyline GTR, a Rover-engined AC Cobra replica, a higher-mileage E46 BMW M3, a good C3/C4 Corvette, a bike-engined Lotus 7 copy, Maserati 3200, etc., etc., etc.

From the list above, I'd go Mazda RX7 every single time. It's everything you want, including near-zero practicality and tragic fuel consumption.

And yes, I spend a lot of time dreaming on Pistonheads.

I reckon an S2000 would be pretty much perfect 8)

They sound fantastic 🙂

Elise if you fit (I'm 6ft4 and don't really fit in a Mk1, but am just about alright in a Mk2). Just enough practicality to keep you dry in the rain, but not so much that you'll be tempted to drive it all the time. If you need a bit more practicality, don't overlook the Puma 1.7. Not especially quick but made me smile more than any other car I've owned.

10,000 is what I plan to save then spend on a similar car. I am going to spend the next 2 years considering the following:

BMW Z3 (3.0)
BMW M3 (E46)
Honda S2000
Vauxhall VX220 (turbo)

Like The Flying Ox - I also spend a lot of time dreaming on Pistonheads!

Racing Puma?

Elise, then come take me for a spin in it

Join a P1 club or similar maybe?

Cooper S Works all the way.

Or an Evo 6 Makinen, you did say fuel economy isn't an issue.

Personally I'd only consider RWD or 4WD... but I've not owned anything other than FWD. The racing Pumas are nice, but when you can have an S2000 for similar money...

one of the fast clio's or a jap.

[url= http://cars.uk.msn.com/news/articles.aspx?cp-documentid=147863764 ]The best cars for under £10000, all the cars you'll ever need[/url] 😯

for fun def get a soft top. I don't think you need a lot of power to enjoy driving either, get something that handles well.

lol @ amplebrew

Another idea if you want something a little more rare and refined - a late BMW 850 perhaps?
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£10K may well buy you a lot of car in the form of a Maserati 3200GT or BMW 850, but in doing so, you'll buy yourself a whole heap of heartache, pain and financial misery. £10K buying one is the cheap bit: running them is the expensive bit, and I speak from experience and the Maserati 3200 sitting on the driveway.

Servicing routinely runs into four figures.
Wear-and-tear repairs/consumables will make you cry (£1-2000 for a clutch, sir? Which itself may only last 30-50,000 miles)
Unexpected repairs (like, f' instance a gearbox), and you'll be lucky to have any change from you same amount you spent.

...and that's before you get to fuel, tyres, insurance, the "fun" of trying to find somewhere decent to get them serviced/repaired etc, etc.

And to cap it all, the Maserati isn't anywhere near reliable, meaning you'll be spending lots, often. I've heard the 850 with all it's early-90s tech, isn't much better.

Seriously, if you think you'll ever ask "How much..." regarding anything to do with cars of this ilk, then you probably can't afford it.

I think Evo did a group test of fast cars for £10k. Clio V6 won as the most fun/lethal, but I think that a Panda 100 won as a new car. Can't remember exactly, I read it long time ago. They had an RX7 there, RS6 Avant, older BMW M5, Lotus Esprit and some other ones.

I would probably go and try an Civic Type R as my friend's Integra Type R was just mental. Plus You can have the "Vtec just kicked in Yo" sticker or something. 😉 Can You get a 335D for £10k?

lol my mate wrote that msn article!

One of my "fun" cars,'69 GT390,like what Steve McQueen drove in "Bullitt" but red not green.you might struggle to get one for 10k now though, it is fun though..........
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BMW M Coupe from late 90's early 2000's is my mid-life crisis car.
Loved em ever since someone at work had one new in 1999.

A quick look on pistonheads brings up a lot of nice kit for £10k and below 8)

jensen interceptor
lotus 7

Interceptors are lovely, I had an ff, thirsty as a ba*tard though, every garage you went past you had to go in and fill up in case you didn't see another for 500 yards.Even with 4wd it still handled like a barge towing an oil tanker, bloody lovely though if you can get a sorted one.

^ get onto piston heads, will give you a good idea of whats out there!

i'd personally get a VX220

This looks like fun car, within your price range too i reckon

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My Ford Puma? its in the classifieds now for a Bargainous £1495 😆

Absolutely an Elise or Westfield/Caterham or Spyder maybe?

Father in law selling his wonderful Westfield, looking for around £10k, North Yorkshire. I am currently trying to decide if I can justify it but I can't - can get you details if interested.

All down to what you want to do with it,
If its drives in the country get one that the top comes off,
Rear wheel drive if your thinking about going on a track/airfield with it,
How many seats do you need??if its just for you why bother with a four seater, get just the two seats.

I got a Elise in 2002 to have a bit of fun,trackdays,tour the UK & Europe in and then get rid of it after a year.

Still got it !!

Massive grinfactor everytime its fired up 🙂

Elise is winning it so far. No one have anything nice to say about a Celica?

saxo VTS!

A celica is not in the same class - a big heavy lump. Small and wonderful handling is what you need. You would be seriously stunned at how an Elise handles compared to anything like MX5, celica, MR2 etc - a completely different class.

My dad has had an MR2 Roadster as his "fun" car for about 6 years now, and I've driven it quite a few times too. They're a lot of fun - very similar light front end and superb turn-in as an Elise, but with a hood that you can put up and down single-handed while you're sat in the thing. LSD as standard. Good ones available for half your budget, and as much as a typical warm hatch to insure (unlike the Elise which costs silly money for some reason).

He does a few trackdays a year and it holds up pretty well. Boot space is comical but OK if you pack a couple of squashy bags and your passenger doesn't mind some things under their legs. A guy I know and his fiance did 3 weeks camping around Europe in one.

... but ...

personally speaking, getting my motorcycle licence and a bike has utterly transformed the way I use and enjoy the roads. It's fascinating to ride with all the physics going on - your body weight making up about a third of the total weight of the machine and being able to move it about at will. Plus even my beginner "girls bike" has enough power to be as quick as almost any car at reasonably legal speeds, and feels even quicker than it is.

I've done the biking bit, so no need to try to "convert" me. 😆
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MX5 would be my choice if it's your first RWD car - the front engined setup bites less viciously than a mid engined one.

If you do go mid engined, I'd go for the Lotus. The late MR2s just don't seem like "special" cars inside.

The MR2 is a nippy road car, the Elise feels like a proper race-bred car and it can hold on long after your nerve lets up.

I drove a supercharged Exige at Silverstone a couple of years ago and was stunned at the huge grip under severe braking and subsequent turning in to corners. Fair enough it has more power than a K series Elise, but it shares essentially the same chassis. I have never driven an 'ordinary' road car to compare.

Fun is a car you can drive, not one you have to have repaired all the time.
We have an MX-5 from new 9 years ago (Mk2 facelift with the SVT engine). Not the fastest, nor the grippest, but very well balanced and great fun in snow. Enough room for a 3 week honey moon touring Spain and France - recommend climbing Pyrenean passes in the sun to anyone. And it leaves a smile on my face whenever I drive it.

Cheap as chips to buy these days (£2-3k in the owners club magazine) and a reputation for robustness (particularly the MK1 to be honest, the engine of which was originally designed to have a turbo which was at one time available aftermarket from Mazda dealers IIRC)

It's service and MoT last week cost a combined £99 at the main dealer it originally came from.

Sum total of "extra" work required in the 9 years? Well a bit of roof trim was sitting a bit proud - didn't leak, but caused a little wind noise do Mazda replaced in on warranty.

I must say if I didn't want out and out performance, an MX5 would top my list.

for under 10k you have so much choice.caterhams or westfields are options.. but dont get caught up in the idea of the likes of civic type rs, mini cooper s and mark 1 elises as being fast.nippy but a bit out of depth compared to what you could have.

you are willing to spend money that can buy you a car that can do so much more than the likes of those.

supercar territory.not hot hatch territory.

Agreed on the MX5. Mrs Ox has one and it's tremendous fun. Only cost £1500 and about £300 to insure.
You need to be careful with the early (89-91) mk1 1.6 engines though. Something to do with a short-nose crank issue. If you were to go for one, and it was an early mk1 1.6, then check it's had the crank thing sorted or it can lead to all sorts of messy problems.

I preferred driving a VX220 round the track to an exige, lovely car to drive.

If it's fun you're after, then a VX220 Turbo will do the trick - should be able to pick up a decent one for that kind of spend.

I had an 03 plate back in 2004 and it was a cracking piece of kit. Quicker than most and handles like a Scaletrix equivalent 😀 . Okay, it's a little impractical for stowage - I just about managed my golf bag in the passenger seat with the roof off - but you can fit a surprising amount of stuff in the boot (okay, about 4 bags of shopping).

IMO better built than its Lotus "sibling" and offers more bang, plus you'll get unlimited support from those on the VX220 forum ... and of course there are several seriously gifted tuning firms out there; Plans MotorSport, Thorney MotorSport, et al. Get it running a Stage II or above and you're stepping up another level 😀

As has been said already, "bigger" more prestige motors could set you back a fair wad in running costs, e.g M3 E46, Maseratti 3200 (nearly bought one before the VX), 911, etc.

PS go for the T and not the NA - otherwise you'll miss the torque.

PPS and track days are excellent in the VXT 😀