Buy, insure, tax, (DIY) maintain AND fun for £1000-1500?

[LandingSpot]

Been considering a snotter for some months now as a way of saving some of the running costs on my GT Four; mainly fuel, but expensive suspension parts, insurance for 10-12k miles as opposed to much less for weekend use and other consumable items.

I just couldn't go from 300+ bhp to a 1 litre corsa as it would be torture. Electing to take the snotter needs to be fun as otherwise it'll just get left in weak moments of "oh go on then just today" and end up using the car I am trying to save money on. So I'm thinking Clio (2) 172, Sport Ka, Puma, Golf GTI (MkII/III) etc. I don't care about huge power, massive brakes, blinging wheels or any of that. It would stay standard as a bangernomic exercise.

At the moment, I'm thinking of:

Golf MkII or III
Sport Ka
Clio 172
Puma 1.4
MR2 (N/A!)

Anybody done the same thing or got one as a daily that could comment on the likelyhood of getting an honest example of any of the above (or others!) and being able to run it as something interesting without having to break the bank?

Edited by LandingSpot on Saturday 8th October 16:44

[Matt UK]

Mk1 MX5

[LandingSpot]

Knew there was something I'd forgotten!!

[Roger Dodger]

Cost me £600

[Matt UK]

Not much you can't do on an early Mk1 MX5 - even the more complex jobs usually involve just getting more hands and more hot tea going.

Cheap and great fun. Although I replaced mine with a caterham, I do miss it a lot.

[spoodler]

Ridiculous as it may sound, my mate has just bought a Suzuki Jimny to reoplace his Bentley (late '90s Bentley) and reckons it's great fun. Noisy, old fashioned and basic but he is really looking forward to getting some bad weather this year...

[MiltonRX]

In a similar position myself at the moment with my RX8 and moving in with the Mrs which will increase my commute and mean parking it on the road. Could use her car which coincidently is a 1.0 Corsa but don't really fancy it either.

Interested to see what answers you get, I was erring towards the Puma as I've always secretly quite liked them.

Could just try and persuade the Mrs to change her car I guess!

[acf8181]

mr2 n/a would be my choice

[Matt UK]

Excuse for posting an old pic - really miss that car.

Fun, cheap, reliable, trackable - nice combo.

[stoocake]

4th Gen Honda Preludes can be had in 2.2 VTEC guise for that money. Harder to find now since the bloody scrappage scheme but worth a look.

[SambaS]

The most money I ever spent on a car was my Opel Monza GSE it was under a grand. As was the XR3 and the Samba Cabrio and the Polonez!

I still own all four and do the majority of work on them myself. Just learning to weld now, have done paint work, the mechanics side is fairly simple. Am just learning as I go and its good fun

[Jamirecluse]

^Did you buy it for under £1000?Didn't know they were that cheap.

OP, Puma 1.7 is probably a lot more fun and running costs shouldn't be too much higher.

[SambaS]

Jamirecluse said:

^Did you buy it for under £1000?Didn't know they were that cheap.

OP, Puma 1.7 is probably a lot more fun and running costs shouldn't be too much higher.

Yea, I did give a MK2 Golf GTi to the guy who collected it for me, but that only ended up in his scrapyard. All in I got the Monza for under a grand, dont think they were supposed to be that cheap, it was on eBay starting at £100 or something. I just asked how much to buy now, and then went and snapped his arm off!

[redgriff500]

Depending upon age, area convictions etc insurance is going to be £400ish for most cars mentioned, tax £250 ish and lets budget £100 repairs.

So even the £1500 budget is only leaving £750 for a car.