Just looked through this thread properly.
Just my take, but you can tell those who either
A) Have never driven on a track in their life, or have just done a few 15 minute sessions
and
B) Have no concept of the costs of running a car on the track.
Jap turbo nutter mobiles are helluh expensive to be consistantly run month after month on the track. You need to have SERIOUSLY large disposable income to even consider it.
FWD cars are great for the first 2-3 days, then you realise it actually requires significantly less skill to get round as fast as a RWD car, and you wish you had bought something which you could really learn to drive fast in.
RWD, N/A, Light, Cheap to modify, buy parts for and run is what you want, and it screams E36 every day of the week
I agreed with you completely, right up until this point:
FWD cars are great for the first 2-3 days, then you realise it actually requires significantly less skill to get round as fast as a RWD car, and you wish you had bought something which you could really learn to drive fast in.
Go tell 90% of Touring Car drivers and a large population of rally boys that what they are doing does not require much skill. I'm sure that'll raise a chuckle.
There are many out there who would argue that it is a lot more difficult driving a high powered (150BHP+) lightweight FWD car simply because you've got to feed both the power and steering effort through the same two wheels. I won't go as far to say driving a FWD car quickly is more difficult compared to something RWD, but I will say that they are totally different platforms with their own advantages and disadvantages.
I will echo that spending £5,000 on a track **** is utter, utter madness. Personally, I wouldn't want to be spending anymore than £2,000, and from that 2 grand I'd want something that was already fit for the track.
This weekend I picked up a stripped out 205 GTi complete with bucket seats, harnesses and reworked suspension and partly rebuilt GTi-6 engine shoehorned in for... £1,400. I think I may have gotten a bit of a bargain, but £2,000 seems like it could pick up a fair sorted 205 GTi. Personally I wouldn't put my money in any other FWD car if I was looking for some track action.
If it must be RWD, I'd vote MX5. Yes, they aren't going to set your hair on fire in a straight line, but if that matters to you then you've missed the point of the 'Five and track driving completely. It is a pure, High revving, great handling, RWD roadster that can be picked up for pennies. For a few more pennies you can sort it to be something that can shame a lot of cars with much higher power figures, and I'm not talking about spending the money on the engine either. Good suspension, good brakes, good tyres and you're good to go.
I've noticed talk of e36s. Although I've never had one around a track, I had a chance to take my father's 323i around some B Roads a while back and was disappointed. It felt numb and slow (I was driving a 85bhp 205 at the time!). I'm not massively convinced that the extra 20 odd bhp of the 328i would make it a completely different car, but personally I am not impressed.
