Hot hatches are great fun and fast but please.....comparing it to a Boxster outside of some statistics on a spreadsheet is silly. One is a scalpel, the others are fast shopping cars that will crash and bang over holes in the road and make dump valve noises.
M140i, Golf R, S3 - Anything else to look at?
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would have expected it to be the other way round..It going feel faster in a high up position..
Nah, that's why doing well below legal speeds can feel hilariously fun in say an MX5.
What the MX5 does as well as virtually any of the finest sports cars is, with the right set up, have fantastic steering, fantastic braking (feel, retardation and lack of fade) and a fantastic gearbox. What it does less well is go, sound nice, deal with the fact it has no roof or excite when the road opens out. I love the MX5, but a Boxster does all the things an MX5 does well and the bits it doesn't, well.
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[TW]Fox;30023436 said:
Why get a Boxster over an MX5 then? It will be "pretty much never" as well by that logic.
An A45 is SO much easier to drive quickly than something RWD like a Boxster, especially so in poor weather because of the grip on offer.
Struggling to keep the rear wheels from sliding on narrow UK roads is not enjoyable. Nobody drifts round roundabouts etc without looking like a complete plank.
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Not sure if serious. The adaptive suspension in the A45 is the equivalent of PASM on a Boxster. It also doesn't make any dump valve noises, in fact in comfort mode it's relatively refined.
Also it should be noted that an A45 is quicker round the ring than a Cayman R, so hardly a shopping cart.
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I think the OP just needs to go for test drive in few cars
It depends what you want to put down as an desposit and how much per month.
I have the pre facelift A45 for last 20 months and in my eyes it has brilliant
If you buy an A45 or RS3 you go with eyes wide open on runnning costs.
I have been to couple of meets with members on the forum and it is ballistic and I have not got bored with it at all
And if you think is like normal A class then you wrong
Performance figures are very consertive
Evo tested my car 4.3 0-60 and 0-100 in 10.5
For car that is just over 40,000 that is fast and with AWD then it is an everyday car.
I am looking to replace it with a face lift version in future
I did not go for the Spoiler i went for stealth no one bothers you but they do hear and i like the sound it makes it
It would be boring world if like the same and my last car was GT86
Which I enjoyed but I like my A45 better
It depends what you want to put down as an desposit and how much per month.
I have the pre facelift A45 for last 20 months and in my eyes it has brilliant
If you buy an A45 or RS3 you go with eyes wide open on runnning costs.
I have been to couple of meets with members on the forum and it is ballistic and I have not got bored with it at all
And if you think is like normal A class then you wrong
Performance figures are very consertive
Evo tested my car 4.3 0-60 and 0-100 in 10.5
For car that is just over 40,000 that is fast and with AWD then it is an everyday car.
I am looking to replace it with a face lift version in future
I did not go for the Spoiler i went for stealth no one bothers you but they do hear and i like the sound it makes it
It would be boring world if like the same and my last car was GT86
Which I enjoyed but I like my A45 better
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I had a test drive in the cla45 a few weeks ago and it felt a bit soft and quite slow compared to my car. Also cant use the gearstick to do manual over-ride which is a no-go for me.
![[TW]Fox](/data/man-of-honor/2009.png){kind=avatar}
Because there is a huge difference in credible and usable performance between a Boxster and an MX5, whereas the A45 is getting onto the realms of diminishing returns.
I don't dispute this however I covered it in my post above - just when does anyone drive like that? When are you covering ground 'quickly' in sufficiently poor conditions that there is a credible journey time difference between a Boxster S and an A45?
Realistically though this isn't a day to day issue with a powerful RWD car is it? I do not find myself 'struggling to keep the rear wheels from sliding'.
It might be slightly odd, but one of the drivers for me in getting a 4WD performance hatch (even though mine's a Saloon, I don't actually like the styling of hatchbacks) was that I take it up the Alps at least once every ski season.
Slightly mad, possibly, but for those 4~ drives a year (with the right tyres) I'll be able to make progress up the hills and not have to worry about some **** in front slowing down to 0mph making it somewhere between impossible and really sodding difficult to set off again uphill.
Slightly mad, possibly, but for those 4~ drives a year (with the right tyres) I'll be able to make progress up the hills and not have to worry about some **** in front slowing down to 0mph making it somewhere between impossible and really sodding difficult to set off again uphill.
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What are you comparing it to?
Over-ride with the paddles? Not sure why any automatics bother with a forward/back manual shifter as the paddles are always more accessible.
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It's a 355bhp car. Either you were driving it wrong or you drive something like a Ferrari 612 Scaglietti
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[TW]Fox;30024355 said:
Why would you choose to hamper yourself with the limitations of a RWD Boxster though when considering UK weather and the lack of space on the roads to let the back run loose? In every safe, normal driving situation AWD is going to be more suitable. Why should anyone pay more for a Boxster when it's worse suited to driving on our roads?
I had several instances in the GT86 where the rear wheels would spin or the back would run wide at pretty average speeds, which whilst obviously exhilarating, wasn't exactly useful for safe road use.
Also, from a practicality and refinement perspective, these premium hatchbacks do the chilled out slow commute just as well as the executive ranges (c class / 3 series), whereas the Boxster certainly does not. Once again, with a sensible hat on, why pay more for something that does neither practicality or performance better? If it's "for fun", then the much cheaper MX5's / GT86's do the same job at road legal speeds.
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376bhp car in the facelift.
Yeah, these pop up often and they're very tempting.
For similar reasons AWD is appealing to me, moreso over RWD. I went from an S2000 to the Focus, and it wasn't a welcome return to FWD - so would definitely err on the side of RWD or AWD, especially if it was pushing over 300hp.
Am I right saying you have/have ordered an S3? Just curious on your thoughts on it compared to similar cars in it's class?
I have got an S3 saloon on order yes, it's due to begin build on the 3rd of October.
I drove the Golf R, the S3 and an M135i (couldn't find an M140i to test, but they are similar enough). The Golf R made a lovely noise, but I found the infotainment, perceived interior quality and even the interior styling to be a bit of a let down coming from my A4, for all intents and purposes it felt almost identical to drive to the S3, if a little more road noise (probably less sound insulation). The M135i was only really driven out of curiosity, I couldn't see myself in one (didn't want a hatch, I'd have gone for a Golf R estate had I gone that route), the power delivery was great, the interior looked ok, but felt a bit cheap on things like the harder plastics (eg stalks) and was already creaking like a good-un. There's no denying that it felt more balanced and poised, and would make for a better trackday car, but as a daily I never felt like it was as confidence inspiring to "push-on" with compared to the R and S3.
Nothing else really appealed, didn't want a Ford, didn't want a Honda, didn't see the point in trying the Leon after already thinking the Golf was a bit pokey in places.
I drove the Golf R, the S3 and an M135i (couldn't find an M140i to test, but they are similar enough). The Golf R made a lovely noise, but I found the infotainment, perceived interior quality and even the interior styling to be a bit of a let down coming from my A4, for all intents and purposes it felt almost identical to drive to the S3, if a little more road noise (probably less sound insulation). The M135i was only really driven out of curiosity, I couldn't see myself in one (didn't want a hatch, I'd have gone for a Golf R estate had I gone that route), the power delivery was great, the interior looked ok, but felt a bit cheap on things like the harder plastics (eg stalks) and was already creaking like a good-un. There's no denying that it felt more balanced and poised, and would make for a better trackday car, but as a daily I never felt like it was as confidence inspiring to "push-on" with compared to the R and S3.
Nothing else really appealed, didn't want a Ford, didn't want a Honda, didn't see the point in trying the Leon after already thinking the Golf was a bit pokey in places.