Cheapest weekend motoring

[steveb8189]

We have a family car that meets all our motoring needs but it's boring and on a three year lease so I'm getting itchy and want to buy something interesting for weekend use (probably < 1,000 miles a year).

I'm looking to get something that I could flip every year at the lowest cost. I guess that restricts me to buying either privately or at an auction so I don't take a big dealler hit each time. The question is, what sort of thing would people recomend that would lose me the least money

I can probably budget up to around 20k for the initial purchase. I'm going on 40 now so insurance isn't as bad as it used to be but I wouldn't want to throw away 00's in tax
.
Thoughts?

[ChrisH72]

My thoughts would be not to spend anywhere near 20k even if you can well afford it. Basically the more you spend the more you'll lose in depreciation if you plan to change it in a year's time.

There must be plenty of tasty cars that'll scratch your itch for half that amount, probably even less?

[giveitfish]

Elise or Caterham easily in your budget and unlikely to depreciate at all. I’m fact my Elise S1 went up £4K in the time I had it, which just about paid for the numerous bills!

Count on £500-£1000 per year in maintenance/repairs even with low miles, and allow for the fact that they can take several months to move on when you’re done with them.

[steveb8189]

I did have that thought jn the back of my mind. Clio 200 or something similar. I had an S2000 which I enjoyed but still ended up costing quite a lot in depreciation.

I guess the reality is that cars depreciate and the only way to switch every 6 months is of you find somewhere to buy at the right price.

In hindsight, I should have just paid a few extra £ a month on the lease deal and got something more interesting. Would probably have cost less than owning two cars.

[ZX10R NIN]

If you want to change every year then I'd say spend less if you want to keep it longer then go for it.