Thinking about a Chim

[petrolveins]

Hello All,

Not ventured into these parts before. I've just sold my M5 and my 540i is about to go too. Before that I had a decatted very noisy little Elise. The Chim as always been on my radar, I looked at ones at Fernhurst and Racing Green before buying the Lotus, I was just nervous about running costs. I now realise that actually the M5 would have cost more to run than a good Chim and with summer around the corner I'm on the hunt. Ideally I will be looking to get two cars, so my budget for the Chim is around £9k or less. The rest to go on a daily. That said I may end up using the Chim as daily for a while.

I'm not looking for a list of buyers tips, searched enough to find those, my main question though is with my budget what am I hoping for? There doesn't seem to be a lot in the classifieds at the moment either, so where should I look? Also should I consider earlier cars with higher mileage or will they be trouble?

Thanks.

[petrolveins]

Cool thanks guys. I'll see what turns up, there is that green one in London for £9500 that has caught my attention. I did feel by budget was a bit low. Will see what happens.

[petrolveins]

Thanks for all the info folks, I've actually put a deposit on a Jag I'm collecting tomorrow, not quite the same thing, but not enough budget for a Chim too. V8 ticked off in Jag so I can settle for something like an MX-5 for my manual gearbox open top thrills now.