Fun sports car up to £20k

[matt21]

I’m looking to buy a lightweight sports car for occasional use to accompany my M3 CSL and Cayman GTS 4.0.

Criteria is something cheap ish to run, fairly reliable and minimal depreciation. Doesn’t need to be luxurious but does need to be ok to park outside. Budget £15-20k.

Thinking an Elise, but unsure if Mk1 or Mk2 is best, and any models I should look for?

Happy to pay a little more for a much better example

Cheers!

[baconsarney]

https://www.pistonheads.com/buy/search?M=19&ma...

[SamCar10]

matt21 said:

I’m looking to buy a lightweight sports car for occasional use to accompany my M3 CSL and Cayman GTS 4.0.

Criteria is something cheap ish to run, fairly reliable and minimal depreciation. Doesn’t need to be luxurious but does need to be ok to park outside. Budget £15-20k.

Thinking an Elise, but unsure if Mk1 or Mk2 is best, and any models I should look for?

Happy to pay a little more for a much better example

Cheers!

A friend of mine has an early S1 with a tuned & sorted K series, fantastic car and not much like it for the price. I think it's a 111S with a dealer fitted tuning kit, makes a great noise and goes very well. Can't go wrong with the toyota engined ones, although you'll be looking at later S2 models around the 20k mark these days

[mattyprice4004]

111S is a great shout - the K Series suits it to the ground, and there's some seriously nice examples out there within your budget.

[ZX10R NIN]

I'd say look for an S2:

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202205055...

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/275320056756?hash=item4...

111S:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/155014093235?hash=item2...

[matt21]

Thanks for the advice. Why S2 over S1 though? Have I missed the boat with the S1?

[ZX10R NIN]

Both are epic steers but I feel the S2 is the better overall car but the S1 is a bit more raw & visceral, there's also the VX220 Turbo:

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202205246...

[coldel]

Have the Elise S2 111R's gone north of £20k now? Otherwise a VX220T would be tonnes of fun and surprises quite a lot of people that smirk at the V badge on the front.

PH recently did a piece on the Z4M - I just bought a Z4 E86 3.0si and for the money its a lot of car!