Recommendations for £5k fun car please

[AdyBlueEyes]

Hello everyone. I am a long term reader of this fine site and as such I am well aware that, although many PHers get irked with the prevalance of 'what car' threads, someone may well suggest something that I have not thought about.

So I am prepared to take the risk.

What I am after is a car that's fun to drive, reasonably cheap to service, not outrageously thirsty, and not too bad on insurance (this is essential due to falling foul of the law last year). I have up to £5k to spend.

I have considered the following:

Mazda MX5
Toyota MR2 Roadster
BMW Z3 of some kind

I would appreciate feedback on any of those 'possibles', and any other ideas that you may have would be gratefully appreciated.


Thanks.

[A13]

Z3

[VR46]

civic type r
r32
integra type r
focus st
leon cupra r

[aka_kerrly]

You could pick up a very good condition 2.8 or 3.0 Z3 but with £5k you also start getting into Z4 territory and the Z4 is generally regarded as improvement over the Z3.

[GroundEffect]

You will NOT have more fun than an Integra Type R DC2.

[PaperCut]

aka_kerrly said:

You could pick up a very good condition 2.8 or 3.0 Z3 but with £5k you also start getting into Z4 territory and the Z4 is generally regarded as improvement over the Z3.

Whilst true that the Z4 is a much better car - with £5k this will only get you a ropey, high mileage example or worse (read CAT-D/C!) and not a lot of choice.

I would look at local good examples of the cars you've mentioned in your OP, as you can't really go wrong with them. The only other car similar to it that you may/may not have considered is a Fiat Barchetta. Yes it's LHD & FWD, but still has the fun factor.

[p4cks]

http://www.pistonheads.com/sales/3842796.htm

£5k all day long. Pennies to run (34mpg, £16 for brake discs and the engine from a Vectra so everything else is cheap enough too if it was to go wrong)

[AdyBlueEyes]

Thanks very much for the suggestions, I had not considered some of the cars mentioned so I will check them out.

[The Big G]

How about one of these, you wont be able to beat the sense of occasion when driving it...



TVR S3 £5500, Slightly over budget but you should be able to negotiate it down a bit.

[Killer2005]

Honda S2000