I preferred driving a VX220 round the track to an exige, lovely car to drive.
+1 mefty
I too tracked an Exige and it was a bucket of bolts - couldn't stand it. Engine was baggy and just not right. VXT on the other hand - especially on a cold day with the Turbo guzzling all those icy notes - far more enjoyable.
just dont stumble upon that vx220 that was rolled at a track and put back together! it was a few years ago now, but the guy selling it on some forum was found out and they saw what had happened to the car in its previous life.not sure if he knew about what happened to it but the thread must have been 20 odd pages long!
martinxyz - that's not by any chance the saga involving Ahmed(?) about 2 years ago? There was a huge thread on VX220 that ended up proving the car he was selling "wasn't quite the genuine article he purported."
you could buy my mates 5.7 litre chevy V8 powered mini if you want, awesome car quick as anything - front engined rear wheel drive lots of power, lots of torque and handles like a go kart 🙂
Do we have to get our willy's out to comment, or does the real world count?
May I ask if a Boxster S may fit the bill? I'm almost as fast on my real world driving in a 'S' as I am in a 911, sometimes I have more fun as well, but I wouldn't ever admit to that........................ever 😉
probably was.nightmare!
it all comes back to me now. the bodyshop rings a bell. its a good thread to sift through if you can find it.;O)
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&f=104&t=907239&nmt=new%20member,%20is%20my%20vx220%20turbo%20a%20members%20old%20car?
I'd stick to the original choices - the MX5 and last shape MR2 are hugely fun and well made.
An Elise is a lot of fun but £10k doesn't get you much and they are incredibly flimsy. I tested a 111R with some Lotus test driver bloke (Adrian something or other) and while very impressed with the handling, the engine sounded like a bazzed up Nova and the interior was so flimsy for a £30k car, it was shocking.
A VX220 is a very capable motor but good ones are hard to find.
A decent MX5 or MR2 is nicely put together and a lot of fun.
Buy the best Mk1 Eunos roadster you can (not an MX5; the imports are like new cars underneath!).
For a £2-3k you'll have as much fun as £10k blown on anything else. I think in the right colour and spec they have a great image too (i.e. black or green with BBS, avoid faded red with 5 spokes from 1992!).
If you've no bike licence get a caterham.
my mx5 was £750, I'll be selling it for similar again in a couple of months. no need to spend 3k, let alone 10 🙂
if you want a true weekend car, a caterham-style-thinger would probably be best, followed shortly by a vx220\elise.
eta : what about an (unbuilt) kit car? I'd love to make one one day when I have more money and a garage.
caterham
used to own a tvr chimaera and did over 40k miles in it. loved, but wouldn't buy another.
in that time i drove most of the tvr range and a good few elises too. loved the 111s - very easy to flick around and good be slid around r'bouts, balanced on the throttle nicely, if you were to do that sort of thing on the public highway, which of course you wouldn't.
chim/griff are simple enough but the service interval is 6k miles and there is inevitably an 'interim' visit 🙁 they have chassis issues in later life too.
fit and finish is never very good on the older british sportcars, but if you can hear the ashtray rattling you're not trying hard enough. 😉
boxster s is a good shout. mate has one and i was very impressed by it. good ride, quality feel, and goes and stops well.
otherwise, cat 7. there is no substitute ( except for maybe the atom, but i have jaundiced views on that particular company ).
be advised that anyone who is enthusiastic about these cars will tell you that they cost buttons to run. they do not.
mx 5 is a sensible ( you won't have to fix it every 5 mins ) choice if you don't want a hobby or don't have deep pockets.
Caterham/Westfield if you like the look of the lotus 7 type cars.
If you want to stand out a bit more then how about MEV Rocket (a focus), MEV Exocet (MX5) or a Toniq R?
I saw a mint Lotus 7 earlier this year - original and owner's clubbed. It was a thing of real beauty.
If you want fast, fun reasonably reliable and not too much to maintain:
Elise
VX 220
Caterham
S2000
Boxster
Chimaera/Griffith - unless you are unlucky
If you're not too worried about performance add the MX5.
williams clio or the 16v version if you can find good ones, loads of money left over as well.
My brother recently spent 10k on a modified Mitsi Evo VIII.
It eats 911 Turbo's for breakfast and still has room for 4 adults, not many people volunteer to be passengers mind!
You're as bad as al.
Only you might end up with more than a motorised rust bucket in the end ...
Love my S2000 but the earlier ones were a bit 'twitchy', post 2004 had suspension mods to improve handling (so only mildly scary).
Can't beat VTEC for giggles though...
An Elise is a lot of fun but £10k doesn't get you much and they are incredibly flimsy. I tested a 111R with some Lotus test driver bloke (Adrian something or other) and while very impressed with the handling, the engine sounded like a bazzed up Nova and the interior was so flimsy for a £30k car, it was shocking.
You need to own one. They get under your skin. I was lucky enough to have a friend who owned one who introduced me too the more 'interesting' aspects of the handling.
I owned an Elise S1 for 4 years as a daily drive and hooning around car.
The interior is crap, you can barely hear yourself speak, you'll need regular appointments with a chiropractor to sort your back out, the roof is a pain in the ass to fit so much that you just accelerate to keep the rain flying over you, the hardtop seems a great idea until you try and find somewhere to store the ****ing thing, they aren't that cheap to keep on the road and well serviced even if you avoid the dealers and go to a indy specialist (I can recommend Sportomotive in Salisbury) but...
There isn't a day that goes by that I don't wish I still had it. No other car has felt so damn right, to the point I don't really care what I drive now as it's not my Elise. Sob. I will never ever be a good enough driver to do full justice to it, and I suspect few here would.
However, if you want a cheap as chips but great fun car for weekends then an early MX5 or Eunos is difficult to beat. Tiny bit underpowered, but you can learn to cope with that, and when you stick it off the track you won't have a mental breakdown. Owned one for 5 years, only traded it in for the Elise. Get a popup lights version - old enough to remove the cat legally, fit a decent air intake system, advance the timing by 6 degrees (I think, google that might be 8), good plugs and leads and you're set.
I'm thinking of a Spitfire for slightly different reasons (want soemthing to play with rather than track these days), but I know it won't actually be as good as the 5.. just want a change, and something I can polish and parade serenely around shows, assuming I actually make it there 🙂
Pretty hard to beat a Caterham. I had one for a couple of years and would def get another if I had the money. So much more extreme on the driving sensations front than pretty much anything else. When you're sitting in it the sides of the car are literally touching your legs - you don't so much get in it as put it on. Without stretching or leaning sideways you can put the palm of your hand flat on the road. You can drive under car park barriers.
Buy the best Mk1 Eunos roadster you can (not an MX5; the imports are like new cars underneath!).
Not good advice - all Mk1s will be elderly now and the imports were not undersealed - they don't use salt in Japan. I didn't know of many that the owners got it done outside of the owners club, so thats a good place to start looking.
If you can get a good import from an enthusiast who understands the differences though you can get a bargain.
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You definitely want one of these. I have been lusting after one since I was a boy and might be getting to the point where I can buy one. Should find a goodun for under £10k. Awesome performance, zero practicality. Perfect.
EDIT: I should add it is called a Grinnal Scorpion.
Midlife crisis thread if I ever saw one 😆
Nah, that's expensive road bikes according to ALL the media this week!
Mk2.5 MX5. Driveable, useable for every day, dependable and insanely well balanced.
Mk1 JDM MX5, supercharged, suspension tweaks, nice wheels and some other pretty bits bolted on. And a roll cage. £5k change too...
Owned 3 mk1 MX5s and am aching for the day to come around when we can justify getting another...
Torminalis - you have just reminded me of this....
A bit out of budget but I would love to try one out. Seen a couple - one on the Harrogate bypass, one sat in a car park at a luxury hotel outside Paris.
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Davey - did you ever change the wheels? from what I understood,the original minilites were nigh on perfect for the car, very light.. though maybe you wanted a bit more contact patch with a supercharger 🙂
I'd love a crack in that.
Still no love for the Mk2 MR2 Turbo?
Seriously, they're immense for how little they cost. All these naturally-aspirated Caterham/Elise/VTEC things are fine and dandy, but there's nothing quite like the acceleration you get from having a huge turbo bolted on to your engine. And the sound, given the engine's about 18" behind you? It's brutal.
And they're very reliable. And they're cheap to fix if stuff does go wrong. And there's a guy out at Ratho that can do pretty much any repair work you could imagine might need doing to one.
A mate had a mk2 MR2 Turbo and it was lethal. He flogged it pretty sharpish.
They're lethal if you drive them like a fanny, or have unsuitable tyres on, or can't read the road conditions. Part and parcel of mid-engined RWD cars.
However, I'll admit that they do have a tendency to go backwards into things. I'm sure this is a design feature. There's a lot of engine to absorb the impact before you get it. Bugger all up front other than a space saver, so that would be a lot messier.
Ox - I never drove it but was scared sh1tless but it. He's a decent driver but had several near misses, especially in the wet.
The mk3 chassis is a zillion times better IMO - shape it only ever came out with 140bhp. I'm sure the 190bhp version would have fitted (from the Celica) - then it would have been an Elise muncher.
All these naturally-aspirated Caterham/Elise/VTEC things are fine and dandy, but there's nothing quite like the acceleration you get from having a huge turbo bolted on to your engine. And the sound, given the engine's about 18" behind you? It's brutal.
Not quite so sure about this. I had a caterham for 5 years & with 225 bhp in 550kgs it gave you the same shove as a turbo for more of the rev range ie faster for longer, I had an imprezza at the same time and it had nowhere near the same levels of acceleration. The scooby was faster day to day though the 7 was so low you couldn't see over brows on hills that you wouldn't even notice in a normal car.
Prior to the Imprezza I had an MR2 (not turbo) & that was horrible, if it decided to let go at the back - which it did occasionally it was very hard to catch.
If track days go for a caterham by all means but it is difficult to use all the performance on the road - mind you it was a laugh at full throttle and did have flames coming out of the side exhaust when you came off the power, which was great in the dark.
Enough of the willy waving (from me anyway) now I have a passat estate and enjoy cars from a distance, maybe when the kids have left home I can go back to something exciting.
True. There are a few mk3s knocking around with turbos bolted on, and they are frighteningly quick. And better chassis, as you say.
Even a mild "cooking" Caterham [i]feels[/i] massively fast. Which is what it is all about, surely? Mine was only 120bhp, with the Caterham six speed - fantastic fun all the time. You can use the really close stacked gears to short-shift just as easily as you can use it keep it on a fast boil. Bit frenzied on the motorway though.
The weight is so low that the performance is maximised to a degree that you can't really appreciate until you've tried it. Even engine braking is much stronger - it's jolly good fun blatting around and virtually never needing the brakes.
I did once try the Blackbird, at a Caterham event at Brands Hatch, which is just another level of excitement entirely. However the clutch was a bloody liability.
A light car doesn't need a turbo IMO. And it's more predictable and will rev more quickly.
Turbos are great when fitted properly but they do limit the engine's useability in many situations. Especially for track type loon cars.
An Elise with a supercharged CTR engine - now that's a fun track machine...
Best thing ive driven in the category your looking in (and ive driven a few) is probably the vx220t im shopping for a clean one at the moment. Pretty well built and reliable, not bad money to run and after an initial high deprecation they seem to be holding value well now. Also some great tuning options to give it a shove towards supercar performance figures if you wished to go that way.
That or you could buy my lovely (notthrasedatallooohnosirhonest) 172 cup 😉
Male menopause Druidh? Going to grow a ponytail as well?
Light small good handling car in the MX5 MR2 lotus Vx220 caterham mould IMO - unless you want a classic.
Metro 6R4
No Male Monopause here TJ - I've plenty of testosterone to go around.
Anyway, isn't it you that desperately needs a haircut?
Hey - I reckon that if I have the money, I may as well put it to good use. Think of it as doing my bit for the flagging economy.
What car did you always want when you were younger but couldn't have?
Ten grand buys a pretty wide range of cars?
Jenson interceptor?
Alfa spider
Classic 2 door merc?
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TandemJeremy - Member
What car did you always want when you were younger but couldn't have?
One of these
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Other than that, I've never been a big car fan. Motorbikes for fun, cars for practicality.
You want a shot in mine Colin?
Hang on did you not always hanker after some 90s jap hatchback?
