Cheap Cerbera = Financial Suicide?

[IanMorewood]

Spent this morning looking at new ordinary cars and quickly came to the impression that nothing exceptional is within our current budget, factoring in minimal depreciation on the TVR and a longer repayment time we could get a £10k(ish) Cerbera for about the same monthly payments. Would running a TVR as a second car (one admittedly that would have to be a daily driver) be a sure fire way to get to the poor house?

[SpeedYellow]

Depends what your budget is for running the car... but they are significantly more to run than a 'normal' car... especially if you buy a cheap car that will likely need a bit spent to bring it up to standard

[JensenA]

The poor house? If it's a good 'sorted' one - not necessarily, bnut you still need to factor in approx £3k a year running costs. Get a Cerb for the weekends, and a cheap car for the daily hack. You don't have to slum it, I've just got a Saab 9000 - 1998, all the toys, full leather etc etc, not a trace of rust, for £800. You know it makes sense

PS - The Chimaera is significantly cheaper to run.

Edited by JensenA on Tuesday 2nd June 20:58

[high52kojak]

You have to budget for them, but you can run them cheaply. You'll have to be prepared to spend a lot of time on it, if you have the knowledge/space/equipment to do so if things go wrong, or a fair few quid if you cant do it yourself. Figues of 3k a year running costs keep floating about but thats just an average.
I have spent a lot of both time and money on mine and friends think I am crazy, but owning a Cerb is just fantastic, British motoring history, animal of an engine, awesome looks.

[grumbledoak]

If you cannot afford a good one, you really cannot afford a bad one. As a daily drive she'll be very expensive.

You can run the RV8 cars quite cheaply, though; it would be much more sensible to get a Chimp...

[jonbarrett]

I try and use mine as a dialy drive during the summer. I limit miles to 5,000 to reduce insurance and shred the fuel receipts so my wife can't add them up.

[IanMorewood]

Yep as I thought then not a real choice for right now, perhaps in a year or two. As for the Chimp thats the route we where going to take a while back but my little lad happened instead.

[VPower]

I do shift work, so can drive mine in on early shift without any stop-start and its great!

But I once came in on late shift through the Guildford rushour traffic and HATED it! I use a bike on nights now!

So if you have a lot of stop start, then my advice is don't!
It's like trying to walk a Tiger on a leash!


Steve

[iamrtl]

I bought my 97 4.2 in November for a very good price you can read that as sub 10k, remembering that super unleaded was near £1.30 a litre at the time!!! I had done some research but the reading I have done on this forum has convinced me that it wasnt nearly enough!!!

That said though I have been extremely lucky. The chap I bought mine from was a member of the TVR car club and when I pulled into the drive there was a Tuscan and Sierra Cosworth Saphire and a UK spec twin turbo supra all in the drive way. Turns out the Tuscan belonged to his father and he was selling the Cerbera and the Cossie in order to finance a house, Supra was gonna be his daily drive!!!

Took mine into Torque Flyte in Northern Ireland two weeks ago for its 42k minor service. Wasnt alot to do but new rear pads were needed Bonnet catches needed fixed and a few other bits and bobs. Total price for the heap was £570 I expressed concern to him about not having the car inspected before I bought it and that I was worried about the outriggers after reading the horror stories on pistonheads. He checked em out and assured me I had nothing to worry about, said it was the cleanest one he'd had in for a while. (Cerbs in Northern Ireland are pretty rare). Told me just to go out and enjoy it.

Since November I think i've done just over 2000 miles and that £570 has been my only expense barring petrol and insurance. I suppose I may be in the minority but I thought I would share my experience to show that it is possible to get a good one cheap but you may need to be very patient or very lucky. Either way good luck getting one, even with the worry I had up till now the car is one purchase i'll never regret worth every penny!!!