£100K Garage: Chris Atkins
What happens when you set a PHer mad about arcade games loose in the classifieds? A great £100K Garage!
Previously owned: Rover Mini Cooper 1.3i SPi, Rover Mini Cooper S Sport Works 5, Ford Puma, Skoda Fabia vRS, Mini Cooper S, Alfa Romeo Giulietta
Currently owned: BMW Z4 3.0Si, Rover Mini Cooper 1.3i SPi, Skoda Yeti
On the shortlist: "After purchasing the Yeti for my wife (although I enjoy running about in it a lot) I've only just bought the Z4 as my daily driver as well as being a bit of fun (my first six-cylinder car). There's no plan to change things in the foreseeable. If money were no object then I'd be happy to get my hands on a Porsche 911 (996.1 GT3 in yellow), Escort or Sierra RS Cosworth, Honda NSX Type R or an Aston Martin V8 Vantage (the 1977 onwards one).
"After reading about Gran Turismo influencing car choices of an entire generation, I got to thinking about the games that had influenced my dream cars, a run of games that stretches back to the late 80s. Some cars from computer game history were sadly out on budget grounds - I played Outrun a lot but (a) the cheapest Testerossa is £80K, and (b) for the Outrun experience you need to hack the roof off it which would be sacrilege. So, I've set out the games - and cars - that stick in the mind."
Cost: £17,995
Balance: £82,005
Why I chose it: "'This is Nancy at Chase Headquarters. We've got an emergency here!' I lost count of the number of coins I pumped into Chase HQ, but what kind of kid doesn't like the idea of driving a Porsche 928 - with 'turbo boost' - in a high-speed chase after an escaped criminal in a far weaker car and smashing them to oblivion?! The only car with the performance and build quality to do this back in 1988 was the 928. It looked amazing then, it still does now, and I would have one in a heartbeat as long as someone else would pay the running costs. This one in the classifieds is the wrong colour (it's black in Chase HQ, this one is silver) but I think it looks great, the spec is good, the price is excellent, and LHD is technically correct given that Chase HQ was set on the highways of America."
Lotus Esprit Turbo
Cost: £22,495 (original choice £22,000)
Balance: £60,005
Why I chose it: "Moving on to my friend's Amiga 500, we spent hours on Lotus Turbo Challenge (1,2 and 3), then I bought Lotus Turbo Challenge on the Mega Drive and spent even more time on it! I've always loved the Esprit, even if the build quality is at the polar opposite end of the spectrum to the 928. The Peter Stevens-developed X180 facelift remains one of my favourite ever cars in terms of looks - it even has proper pop-up headlights - and seeing the Top Gear boys try and destroy the red V8 Esprit in the Patagonia special was unforgivable in my eyes. This specific car is in the right colour (white - the same as player 2 in Lotus 2) and comes with the high-wing, the stuff of dreams for a young lad in the early 90s. I had to put one of these cars in, and I seriously considered buying a Lotus Elan SE (the other car in Lotus Challenge 2) rather than the Z4, but in the end practicality won out. One day, though, one day..." [The original Esprit sadly sold, so we replaced it with a Turbo that's fractionally more expensive - NA]
Cost: £14,995
Balance: £45,010
Why I chose it: "This is a bit of a left-field choice, but back in 1996 when on holiday in Yarmouth I came across Konami's 'GTI Club' in one of the arcades, where you could drive round a city course with multiple short cuts in a number of cool FWD cars - Renault 5, Autobianchi A112, Mk1 Golf GTI, and (most importantly) a Mk1 Mini. You could spend three credits to drive a Bugatti EB110, but why would you when you could drive around the Cote d'Azur in a nippy little hot hatch, pulling handbrake turns (there was a handbrake lever in the arcade cabinet) and laughing like a maniac?
"It certainly helped that I was already Mini mad by that time, having had a few off-road lessons in my dad's 1979 Mini 1000 (half surf blue, half rust). I already have a 1996 SPi that I can't bear to get rid of, and I owned a 1997 MPi Cooper S that was a beast (but was nowhere near as fun on the 13-inch wheels). I really want a Mk1 car and this 1963 one looks like it could be great fun. Yes, it's not original, but if I'm going to drive like a loon around a small town in the French Riviera to recreate the memories of GTI Club then I'd better get a car that I'm willing to throw around. 70hp is great fun in a 600kg car, all the Mk1 features are there, and it is orders of magnitude cheaper than an equivalently powerful Cooper S of the period. What's not to like?"
Lancia Delta Integrale Evo I
Cost: £34,995
Balance: £10,015
Why I chose it: "It's 1995, rallying is the ultimate motorsport at the time. Colin McRae was flying to the WRC crown for Subaru! Top Gear Motorsport brought you all the highlights of each round (not to mention having an epic opening theme tune taken from Propaganda's 'Jewelled'), and then Sega bring out 'Sega Rally' to let you live the dream of crashing through forests in a 4WD monster. It was the daddy of arcade racing games during my latter childhood, and the most available to me as there was a cabinet at the local bowling alley. Many pounds were spent by my friends on this, arguing who got the Delta and who got the Celica. I can still remember how good this game felt to play back then. Fake Recaro seats, four-speed H-pattern gearbox and superb arcade-style rally physics. So naturally, I'd need to get one of these cars on my list. But which one? Well, the Delta is a true hero car (although I've always hankered after an Escort Cosworth personally) with incredible motorsport pedigree, timeless boxy-hatchback-meets-anabolic-steroid-bodykit looks, classic Martini paintjob, and Italian to boot. Obviously this had to beat the Celica into the garage. But wait, there's still £10K in the budget..."
Cost: £9,895
Balance: £120
Why I chose it: "I could never choose between the Delta and the Celica; in fact I think I ended up going for the Celica more in Sega Rally because I thought the red-and-green Castrol paint job was even more iconic than the Delta's Martini markings. In the game the two were identical, but in real life the Lancia turned out the thoroughbred sent out to stud whilst most Celicas seem to have been sent to the glue factory instead, but I have a real soft spot for these. This example looked like the best on the classifieds at the moment, but I was surprised there were only a few there. The interior might be black-and-bleak in the way that only mid-90s Toyotas can manage but I think they still look great, I'm told they drive superbly and, thanks to the cost difference between the Lancia and Toyota, it means I can fit both in my £100K with enough spare change for some Castrol-style stickers. All that's left is to re-enact Sega Rally for real now..."
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I might be mistaken but I seem to recall seeing that '63 Mini on a £100K garage before, shame that on 1st impressions it looks tidy however on closer inspection you can see the rust bubbling through in the usual places and water stains on the headlining as well as a very untidy engine bay considering the asking price.
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