Best driving experience for £200ish

[russy01]

Need a present for my younger brothers birthday, he's 20 and drives a fiat 500 Abarth.

I want to avoid these £100 for 3 laps at 60mph in a 150k mile Gallardo type jobs on a random airfield.

He's a big MB fan and has wet dreams over C63's - so the 1hr C63 experience at MB world is no.1 choice for now...

Anything else out there except for a palmersport day that you'd recommend? Ideally want to spend £250 max.

[rsbmw]

Msv do a few palmersport lite type days, not been but get really good reviews;

http://www.msvdrivinggifts.com/experience/racemast...

[Tickle]

Atom 300 and a hot lap in a Radical would be my choice for £200.

[RussNC]

Track day and some tyres!

[Willy Nilly]

Tell him to drive it as fast as he can on a public road and you will pay the first £200 in fines.

[stepmeek]

Caterham hire in the Highlands the one I am hoping to go for soon, I have heard good things about them and it seems better value to me than a few laps in a car with someone sitting next to you.

http://www.highlandcaterhamhire.co.uk/

[Thorburn]

Wife got me a single seater experience at Silverstone earlier this year, I enjoyed it a lot.

For me it was a lot more appealing than a road car track experience because, well, it wasn't just a fast road car, and being a single seater you didn't have anyone sat alongside you so you didn't feel like you were being judged when you messed up a gear change or whatever.

Edited by Thorburn on Wednesday 27th July 23:45

[CS Garth]

I'd recommend driving over the Alps in your own vehicle being felated by a Milanese hooker

[Smanks]

russy01 said:

He's a big MB fan and has wet dreams over C63's - so the 1hr C63 experience at MB world is no.1 choice for now...

Anything else out there except for a palmersport day that you'd recommend? Ideally want to spend £250 max.

I have had a couple of goes at the MB World experiences, there are quite a few to choose from, the last one I did was the C63 Black which tbh was disappointing. The problem is that because it is such a powerful car, the driving instructors obviously have to take it easy as they have no idea how competent you are. I imagine they are inundated with kids who just want to drift yo. It is quite watered down, most of the time you are driving around at three tenths, and only right towards the end you can really get your foot down and use paddle shifts for all of a few minutes. You do get a go on a wet skid pan which is fun but obviously slow again. IMO it's expensive for what it is. It's a good place to spend a day looking around though, they have some great displays.

[Howard-]

I was given a Mercedes Benz World AMG 1 hour experience thing for my birthday a few years ago. It was absolutely fantastic. I was driving an E63 Estate. The skid pan was great fun, drifting it and doing donuts was great fun, and the instructor let me give it as many beans as I could on the relatively small track. I was overtaking everyone except some sod in an SLS AMG

Wholeheartedly recommend it.

[thebraketester]

Thorburn said:

Wife got me a single seater experience at Silverstone earlier this year, I enjoyed it a lot.

For me it was a lot more appealing than a road car track experience because, well, it wasn't just a fast road car, and being a single seater you didn't have anyone sat alongside you so you didn't feel like you were being judged when you messed up a gear change or whatever.

Edited by Thorburn on Wednesday 27th July 23:45

Absolutely this.

SS at Silverstone ( i think they still do it) Is amazing. The most fun I have had in a car, well that and the 430 challenge.

[CABC]

Porsche let you burn rubber. First thing is a few circuit laps where they can gauge you. They might then turn stability off, especially in the bowl part where it's safer to explore oversteer. That bowl doesn't exist at MB.

[knitware]

Howard- said:

I was given a Mercedes Benz World AMG 1 hour experience thing for my birthday a few years ago. It was absolutely fantastic. I was driving an E63 Estate. The skid pan was great fun, drifting it and doing donuts was great fun, and the instructor let me give it as many beans as I could on the relatively small track. I was overtaking everyone except some sod in an SLS AMG

Wholeheartedly recommend it.

I can recommend this too!

[Nickbrapp]

I've done 2 Mercedes ones, a Land Rover one and a 6th gear one at bruntignthorpe, the merc one was the best, they let you go flat out, drift, do what ever you like really, plus they teach you the importance of ABS and wet roads, it's a good hour out, plus the museum is good and so is the food.

6th gear ones are good too but not much to do there and a lot of standing around

[Brooks1989]

Fully recommend the MSV Racemaster. You go out in a BMW M4 with an instructor to get used to the track then you get a 15 minute session in a formula single seater.

You don't go crazy fast, but the single seater gives the impression you're doing over 100!

Great fun, I've done it twice.

(Second time however, we did have a not male person on the track who didn't understand the 'move to the right to let people overtake rule', which did ruin half the session as we didn't go over 30....)

[Byker28i]

Skid pan course
http://drivetechltd.co.uk/skid-pan/

Huge fun, useful skills

[russy01]

Thanks for all your replies.

Like the look of the MSV ones, might do that myself as Ive always wanted to drive around brands!

Caterhams up north - this looks awesome, but its 580miles from home!

Single seater - I have done this and its great fun.

But I think I have decided on the MB World. As I said before he is a big C63 (or anything AMG) fan, so this ticks boxes straight away. Then I see there is the option of paying £15 to get a passenger in (meaning I can get something out of it too!) - plus we can have a wander around anything else they have going on there.

Thanks for your help .

[snotrag]

Never mind all that 'AMG Experience' this, Porsche taster that.

What you want is a rally school. No receptionist, visitor centre, immersive 3d welcome experience or on-site restaurant.

A Portakabin, a sweaty helmet and a massive jumpsuit.

From experience, what you will get is to absolutely drive the nuts off a proper rally car, for much longer than your '3 laps in a lambo' type events. Its so much fun.

[Black_S3]

http://www.carlimits.com/script/viewEvents.php?typ...

Car limits do a 4 person day for £220. They'll find the other 3 people.

Best to get to know his own car.

[Shiv_P]

snotrag said:

Never mind all that 'AMG Experience' this, Porsche taster that.

What you want is a rally school. No receptionist, visitor centre, immersive 3d welcome experience or on-site restaurant.

A Portakabin, a sweaty helmet and a massive jumpsuit.

From experience, what you will get is to absolutely drive the nuts off a proper rally car, for much longer than your '3 laps in a lambo' type events. Its so much fun.

These are quite difficult to find cheaply though, for £200 what can you expect? Anything decent? (This is actually a question heh not a statement)