Best performance per £ competition

Jez

Jez

Jez

Caporegime
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
33,073
Aim to find the fastest (not necessarily in a straight line, it must be good to drive too) car for the money out of the box available today. Must be a realistic price for the car, no first hit on trader at well under book wrecks.

I am starting to think that an E34 540i is getting close to the best bang for buck money can buy, nearly 300bhp and a decent chassis. Can be had for around £2000 for a decent one.

I was thinking it'd be something jap which would claim this, but i cant find anything for that kind of price which would be as good.

Surely i am mistaken? :)
 
Can i just add, not modded please. As we all know mods do not really add value to a car when sold, so these will skew it somewhat :)

That rover sounds like something of a deal if it actually goes ok! Not exactly a usualy price for them though :p
 
ramirez said:
Toyota Soarer 2.5 twin turbo (280 - 300 bhp) for between £1500 - £2000. I paid £2000 for mine back in January, fresh import with 12 months MOT and 6 months tax, 50,000 miles.

or 4.0 V8 with 260 bhp for £1000 - £1500.

though all the V8s are autos, and 99% of the turbo models are too.

Edit : Probably will be extremely reliable too, mines been spot on!
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Christ why the hell are these not more popular? I really must get some insurance quotes flowing on one of those beauties.

Whats the difference between the Lexus and Toyota versions? Twintubby the best one to go for?
 
Looking at the specs i see they are 280bhp and you are looking at 60 in 6.5 ish with 100 in 17ish

Do they really weigh in at 1800kg? That cant be right surely for an older jap coupe? Would explain the slight lack of performance.

(going on a tangent here thinking itd be a good messabout car for me as i need one soon, was hoping for a sub 15s to 100 car for myself really)
 
Quality, not the fastest thing around, but sounds like an impressive all round package. Thanks for the links :)
 
Kitchster_uk said:
Gotta be looking at a GTO for that sort of bang. Mine is running around the 340bhp mark with replacement filter, customer exhaust and a decat - total cost to me is £3.5k but they can be had much cheaper - I'm looking for just under £3k when I sell mine later this year.
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GTO's are what i was pretty much set on beside an E39 540i (i know they sound like oposite ends of the scale, but performance is similar and they cost similar money) The GTOTT is 280bhp stock, does an exhaust, decat and filter really give an extra 60bhp?! Thats amazing. Does the decat affect the MOT exhaust regs at all?

Issue with a GTO is that strangely i can insure a UK 3000GT for around £800comp, but an import GTOTT comes in at £2500TPFT as none of the normal companies seem to want to touch me on it. So it would have to be insured as a 3000GT which is leaning towards dodgy should i have an incident :( E39 540i on the other hand is straight up insured for £750 with no discrepancies.

Soarer seems very expensive to insure too, only admiral will touch me @ £1500 :eek:
 
Kitchster_uk said:
The 540 is a Biiiiiiiiig sallon that will be required sometime in the future with family/getting older and more sensible things to think about. The GTO is a nut case psycho-mobile that is also a good daily driver. I'm young and it's a toy. No one EVER wants to sit in the back so you don't have to run people about. Fuel economy isn't miles apart but at the end of the day, people actually cpome and chat to me about my car in the petrol station/car parks etc and are genuinely interested and that's nice. Won't happen with a 540 I'm afraid.
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All absolutely true points :) I love the GTOTT's i really do, ive test driven more than i care to remember now. Its just whether i want to risk the insurance thing.
 
Kitchster_uk said:
Have you tried Skyinsure?

The best thing about the GTO has got to be the punishment you can give them in the wet - even on rubbish tyres.
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I know dude, awesome cars :( I will try skyinsure but i wont get my hopes up. Cheers for the suggestion.
 
Kitchster_uk said:
Have you tried Skyinsure?

The best thing about the GTO has got to be the punishment you can give them in the wet - even on rubbish tyres.
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I have requested a call back as obviously they are closed. At least it looks like they might give a personalised quote rather than a computer readout :)
 
House deposit, car musnt eat into that significantly.

3rd option is GTOTT insured as 3000GT, a lot of systems arnt very specific ;)
 
ramirez said:
did you try a soarer on insurance through sky? thats who im with...
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I didnt actually. The soarer seems strangely hard to insure much like the GTOTT import.

I might do tomorrow actually, the only thing which puts me off the soarer is the very slight lack of performance, but i am sure that can be addressed :)
 
I agree, i will :) Dont think i have discounted them. I need to have a drive anyway as i cant imagine what the digital dash is actually like when driving.

What realisitically would a Soarer TT run 0-100 and 1/4? The one on youtube doesnt have any visible times, but certainly looks pretty good.
 
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Ramirez - Damn thats pretty good! I should definately give these things some time. I am guessing that the extra speed over book is down to them actually producing more than the 280bhp quoted?

ConfusedTA - i know :( A 3000GT is twice what a GTOTT costs though at the very least. Very annoying as i can insure a 3000GT for £800 straight up without any dodgyness.
 
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