Spec me my first foray into RWD

wesimmo

wesimmo

wesimmo

Soldato
Joined
19 Mar 2012
Posts
6,617
I'm being made redundant, but have got a few things on the go already, so hopefully, fingers crossed, I will have a little cash to play with and buy myself a car. I want to start reading up on candidates now so i know what I'm looking for as soon as the chance arrives.

We currently have an old Fiesta that the missus uses to get to work and an '04 Octavia vRS with suspected timing belt failure sitting on the drive, i work from home so one car has sufficed and i didn't want to chuck money at the vRS until i knew the situation.

My car history of any relevance is highly modified 2 litre Mark II Golf 16v and highly modified Integra DC2. As per the GT86 thread, i'm not so concerned about being in the lap of luxury or having massive BHP, as long as the dynamics are B Road friendly.

I don't expect to do many miles to work with any of the opportunities I'm looking at, probably 10-20 miles.

Budget, lets say around £7k would be great, but less than £10k could be doable, a little dependent on what i can get out the Skoda.

MX5 - Would be my favourite, except its another averagely powerful 4 cylinder engine.
350Z - Always wanted a V6, currently my favourite.
S2000 - Silly reason not to want one, but my mate had one, otherwise i like the idea of a VTEC convertible.

All the above are obviously 2 seaters, i could live with that, but is there a 2 + 2 available so i can get my 4 year old daughter in there too, family trips up the coast would be much more fun than in the Fiesta.
 
Trips to the coast in any 'fun' car will probably result in an unfamily holiday like ride and you would probably struggle to get your daughter in. I'd buy a newer vRS, ST220 (doubt you can pick one up for that cash). But as you say the vRS is more of a family car that isn't limited to the left hand lane :p
 
Any of those 3 would be brilliant and are renowned for excellent reliability. The S2000 will be the priciest of the bunch/

Go and test drive them all and go from there. It really will be down to what one you prefer.
 
A nice MK3 2.0 sport MX5 would be good, especially if you intend to modify as you can really make it whatever you want as they're a great blank canvas.

Does it need to be softtop & RWD? If you want more seats and just RWD you'd probably be better served by some sort of BMW unless you want to absolutely win and get an R33/34 GT-T
 
Trips to the coast aren't days out, we live 5 mins from Whitley Bay and often drive up to Alnwick or whatever for walks and good seafood.

I don't necessarily want to modify this car, or should i say, can't justify it now i have a family...though a Mk2 MX5 with good body work and then supercharging it did cross my mind at one point!

Not keen on the BMW option, my bro in law is getting rid of an E46 M3 convertible for around my budget, but it always seems too quick to be fun most of the time. Which leads me back to the MX5 every time, but then I want the V6 in the 350Z, but then the idea of a 2+2 and being able to drive the car more often crosses my mind...

So, I'm not set on the soft top, it'd be nice, but definitely a cherry on top, RWD is the only proviso really.

R33/34 is an interesting thought, I thought they were silly money though for decent unmolested ones, I'm trying very hard to be sensible and only use a little bit of the pay off on a toy.....

edit: But no, R33/34 isn't going to have the dynamics, too big and unwieldy i think?
 
Last edited:
wesimmo said:
Not keen on the BMW option, my bro in law is getting rid of an E46 M3 convertible for around my budget, but it always seems too quick to be fun most of the time.
Click to expand...

I think the key word above is "seems" tbh!

My 325i is great fun (even though it's an old estate) compared to the M3 though, it's bland & boring.

IMO, an e46 M3 convertible is an extremely "fun" car to drive....

Each to his own though. :)
 
The Running Man said:
350Z bigger heavier cosier etc than an s2000. But not aa raw. .
Click to expand...

Its comparing a GT Cruiser with a Sports car... IMO at least.

The 350z felt heavy, big and cumbersome through the twisty stuff. The S2000 feels anything but.

If the 350z was a 2+2, I'd be speaking differently of it, but for a 2 seater, I personally don't get it. I know lots of people are delighted with them, and my purchase of an S2000 shows my bias.
 
Conanius said:
If the 350z was a 2+2, I'd be speaking differently of it, but for a 2 seater, I personally don't get it. I know lots of people are delighted with them, and my purchase of an S2000 shows my bias.
Click to expand...

They did make 2+0 and 2+2 versions of the 350z just like they did with the 300ZX, however for some odd reason they called the 2+2 350Z the Skyline 350GT and gave it ghastly aesthetic changes to make it look more professional /vomit (The replacement for the old Skyline was simply called the Nissan GTR and no non-performance versions were made, excluding the estate version).
 
That RX7 is a bit special, I always loved them.

The RX8 i was, weirdly, looking at one in the car park having a cigarette when i saw the post about getting one, but even with that cosmic alignment, no! They've just never grabbed me aesthetics wise, though they do seem eminently sensible given my requirements..

I'm getting the Skoda on the road again so i don't rush into this decision, I'm definitely going to test drive the 3 in my original post. If i can find an RX7 or Skyline local to drive, I will, but not sure still they're my thing.

I'm pretty sure that if it was 5 years in the future a GT86 would be top of my list.

The job situation isn't resolved yet either, 2 very different potential journeys on the cards, one a 20 minute hack across town, another a half hour down the A1. Very different cash (and therefore budget) implications too.
 
Job now sorted. 10 mins away half of which is across a yet to be filled commercial park with massive empty roundabouts all over the place.

So I found a dealer with a 350z, S2000 and Boxster S all at the right price. The guy wouldn't even come out of his office to show me round them, never mind test drive any of them as "they're totally different cars unless you know what you want it's a waste of my time."
 
I'm not quite sure "they're totally different cars". If you said you were interested in the Grand Espace, Lotus Elise and the Bentley Turbo R I'd understand, but they are three sporty-type cars :confused:
 
His final words were "They're all open though. If you want to look in them you can." Before going back to shuffling paper around.

I just said "Your front gate is also open. Bye."

Quite astounding TBH, surely that there are some minor differences between all the 2 seat sports cars means someone would want to drive them before deciding which they wanted?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom