First car for a 31 year old IT nerd – something interesting a very bad idea??

Good shout on the Puma I had one years ago, you can fit two bikes in it with the seats down it has a nice engine and does handle well and it’s cheap to buy and probably insure.

How about an old-school E36 M3?

Or look on the road-legal motorsport section of Pistonheads. There are always a few leftfield options there.

MR2/MX5/Boxter can all be made to work with bikes.

MR2 – Mk1 and Mk3 good – mk2 naff and now most mk1 are rot boxes (as are a lot of mk1 mx-5)

This would work better with a less big bike:

sold this a couple of months ago for what I paid for it £1200 not bad after two years of ownership – fun car and had it on ‘classic’ policy £138 per year fully comp with pan euro breakdown

This is how you carry bikes on an MR2

Thanks for the response guys.

I have no intention of driving how I ride a bike so am less concerned about handling at the ragged edge.

However, I do like the idea of track days in order to learn where the limits are.

For info, the Honda S2000, Elise’s , M3’s etc are in a different league altogether with regards to insurance!

The mx-5 does make sense but then an rx-8’s so much cheaper and could be kept if and when sprogs arrive on the scene..

If you’re not too fussed about handling ‘at the ragged edge’, the rx-8 probably makes more sense then.

The mx-5 is a better sports car but the interior of the rx-8 is undoubtedly a nicer place to be.

have a mk3 mx-5 great car. better than the mk2 / 2.5 though still not has cool/fun really as the mk1. don’t buy a car based on when rugrats might turn up… you can always sell.!!!and even mk-5 come with ISOfix

You’ll find a Golf TDI plenty fast enough if it’s your first car, and very safe too. Given enough road it’ll creep up to twice the national limit…

And you can get your bike in it.

A3 tdi Quattro sport. Fun and practical and can drive circles round every mx5 I come across….

Yer to be fair mx-5 is far from a sensible car for transporting bikes and shite around….

Interesting and sensible don’t often come together.

Golf TDi’s and A3’s are definitely not interesting…

For the OP however, how about a 306 GTi-6? Comfy ish. Can cruise easily and relatively frugally, 6 speed box. Makes an awesome noise when you boot it. Has plenty of toys. Bike’ll go on roof bars or a towbar no problem.

Bit old now, though – they’ll be cheap to buy, but relatively pricey to run as they get to timing belt/ air con replacements etc. Great fun to drive, no doubt, but mine didn’t really handle traffic very well – it would overheat in London driving about. 🙁

If you want an RX-8, you may as well try one, but make sure you go in knowing what to expect. They need oil (not a major issue), and the fuel consumption and road tax (for later ones) are pretty brutal. But hey, run it for a year then sell it on – if you’ve bought a good one and been careful you shouldn’t lose much on it, and you’ll have had a year of fun.

IMHO – because everyone else has one – you can seriously damage yourself in any car, really. If you misjudge your speed and/ or a corner, you’re probably in trouble, and the question really is how much. And, admittedly, some cars will put you deeper in trouble than others.

Alfa 147? Learn all the joys and pitfalls of car ownership in one go.

if I had 4k to buy any car I’d be going for a ep3 type-r if I was bothered about kids/carrying stuff. If I wasn’t. I’d be going for a mk1 mx5 and strapping a charger to it and put the grand change in the bank. An rx8 would be nowhere near any list I made.

Dave (31 year old IT ‘geek’, 3 x owner of mk1 mx5s and had the aforementioned 1.6 sport civic which I loved to bits).

Ah yes but you’re an IT geek whereas I’m an IT nerd.

That makes a huge difference.

Probably

Go classic or quirky, get a nice safe car that way and still turn heads. Saab 96, p1800.

Or more modern, Toyota Sera

Only cheapo advice from me – dont get a rwd first. Proper pants browning. Especially when you might not realise the price of folk’s fences, hedges and sheds – from personal experience.

Any sporty fwd – good for a laugh. Makes you look sensible. Dont buy anything precious for your first car – you may well dent it whilst parking etc etc. Or someone else will and you’ll realise that NCB is worth a lot.

I have no intention of driving how I ride a bike so am less concerned about handling at the ragged edge

This sounds like something I once thought lol. My pride – and confidence – has still not recovered 😆

Hmmm, this is making me wonder – just how over zealous do you have to be to bin a RWD car?

My brother in law installed his mx-5 on a roundabout , via a very solid lamppost…. 12 years or so experience but then he always did seem a little er ‘enthusiastic’ with his right foot…

Some people are making out that RWD cars are inherently unsafe.

They’re not, but if you have come from a fwd car with lots of active safety gizmos especially traction control, but then get in a RWD car without traction control, if you just give it full throttle exiting a corner in the wet you might find the back end steps out a bit, and if you dont recognise this is happenign until its too late then you could be in a spot of bother. If the RWD car has traction control it’ll be no different to the FWD car as it will not let you give it full throttle.

You’ll learn loads about how to drive a car in a RWD car and once you get to know it, you’ll never want a FWD car again (because in general, they’re boring compared to RWD)

But its this adjustability on the throttle that makes a lot (but not all)of RWD cars interesting. Your right foot is an analog device, use it like one and you’ll be fine.

I used to have a TVR cerbera that would spin the back wheels in s straight line even at 90mph in 4th gear if it was wet, but you had to be really clumsy with the throttle to provoke it to do this, and it was great fun all the time.

My first car was a 6month old Mini Cooper, I’ve driven many many cars over the years (cough 6), many scary fast cars namely the supercharged/mapped loaner STI Impreza.

None come even close to the £900 1.7 Yamaha engined Ford Puma.

If the MX5 mk2 was more practical* for biking itd be equal, if not a slight win for the mx5 however the Puma is small, nimble, go-kart like and bloody nippy once you are over 2nd gear. Direction changes, snappy input- the steering is great and its cheap as chips for parts etc. When it dies I will go back to a Forester but I hope it flies through its MOT in Feb.

Trying to refit a saris post ride then the bike and secure is a hassle post-ride when you can just chuck it into a hatch……then there’s the fact you can carry 3/4 people in a Puma or a lot of junk..

Saying that if you can fit a towbar to a mx5?

First Time Driver:

Get a modern car with good NCAP scores, ABS and Airbags! Doesn’t matter how you intend to drive, its all too easy to get out of shape or just make a cock-up. You have to make a gross error to loose control of a modern car Rubbish! Just going a little wide on a bend is ‘out of control’, especially if you end up heading for an oncoming car.

A car that ticks the above boxes will usually be a common and not particularly desirable. But it does mean that in the first 6 months of driving, you will be kerbing £10 wheel trims rather than £600 alloys, and broken mirrors etc will be cheap and easy to replace.

6 months minimum in a ‘normal’ car, then go and fine something exciting!

This was my mate’s car as we headed out for a ride, I can’t honestly suggest its a practical car for the OP though.

Rather than an RX-8, you’d be better spending the same money on a BMW 3 series coupe.

It’ll drive as well and you’ll actually be able to sell it when the time comes.

The thing is though, for 4k it’d be a pretty old 3 series coupe!

Rx-8’s are crazy cheap!

I doubt the op would get insurance on a rx8

Not a nerd, but after passing my test at 30 I got a Fiesta 1.4 03 plate. Not scandalous to insure and cheap to run/fix.

…And apperently a really good drive as well. Like the mk1 Focus etc.

Hora – the insurance isnt actually too bad, I posted a page or two ago the comparative quotes for a corsa, Octavia and rx-8.

…And apperently a really good drive as well. Like the mk1 Focus etc.

Nothing to compare it to, but is a fun car to throw about…..just have to use the gears right to make up for the lack of grunt.

RRR….hmmmmmmm could be within the ‘brief’ then.

Hmmm is there anyway I can buy a mx5? How could I explain to hora jnr and mrshora that I can’t carry them both?

How about old school cool? Jaguar XJS 4.0
It’ll use more oil and more petrol than an RX8, and probably has the actual reliability that the RX8 is perceived to have, but because it’s not a rotary it’ll pass muster for a STW “list”.

Get the RX8.

p.s. I love the XJS, so it’s a semi-serious suggestion.

My brother has a V12 XJS.

It decided to not start as he and new wife left the church en route to their wedding reception..

It’s now in a garage , covered up and unloved at my parents house… A lovely car in a straight line by all accounts, when it worked …

A-B happens quicker in our Mondeo diesel estate, shifting so much kit and you don’t even notice the speed. The MX-5 is slower A-B, but so much more fun and feeling.

get the least amount of car to move as much as you need, the mondeo could never handle like the mx5

On a motorway. On a series of bends the Mondeo would be left behind.

Just to give a contrasting approach… I went from sports bikes, where in all honestly 99% of people can’t get anywhere near the edge of the thing’s performance, and half the 1% that can choose not to, and bought a diesel focus estate. And tbh I have far more fun trying to make the focus go moderately quickly than I ever had going considerably faster on a bike. Obviously different people take their pleasure in different ways but I’d much rather be trying to hustle a slower car, than being in a fast car feeling slow.

Also feel you learn a lot from driving a more basic car, they flatter you less and don’t let you hide mistakes as easily.

YMMV of course- no doubt a lot of people would hate my mobile garden shed.

hora – not many straights on the roads I was thinking of, Welsh B-roads with rarely a chance to get beyond 4th

MX5 is more fun, but the Mondeo will be waiting at the next village.

Like Northwind suggests, lot to be gained from hustling a basic car.

I’d still take a mx5 over a civic type r. After I drive one I thought it was all revs and shouting with little too show.

Timber you’ve obviously raced someone at somepoint. All that you proved against that driver is someone in a welsh village had their taxi turn up early that day.

OP – Any car with a bit of poke will be entertaining for your first car! All the folk on here going on about ‘boring this’, ‘wouldn’t have that’, have all drove/owned multiple cars. It’s only on driving muliple cars that you notice the difference between them!
Has for the RWD, FWD and AWD debate…I have a RWD car and although I love it, I wouldn’t buy another. I live at the bottom of a steep hill and can’t drive up it when there’s snow/ice about. Luckily I can borrow a 4×4 when that happens, if it wasn’t for that, I’d have sold my BMW and bought an Audi Quattro by now.