Last night I caught up w/ an old friend at his Halloween party. To say he has an impressive car collection would be an understatement. He also races the Ferrari Challenge series (doing well at it, too) and gets in a fair amount of track time.

I asked him if all the racing/track time has taken the fun out of street driving, and he said he still enjoys driving on the street, but prefers his older, slower cars (Ferraris and Jags) b/c you can use more of their performance, vs. hitting 130 in no time in his Enzo.

This is fairly consistent w/ my recent experience w/ my Miata. I've had a blast thrashing it around the tight & twisty roads near Lake Travis. It has no ABS, no traction control, no stability control, nothing to interfere w/ driving fun.

My Cayman S is of course better in many respects, but the difference in fun factor is minute relative to the difference in price. The CS makes me feel like a better driver, but I feel like the Miata will make me a better driver.

It's a common tendency for enthusiasts to strive for faster and faster cars, and worship the top rung cars like the GT-R, GT3, ZR1, etc. In the real world where you and I drive most frequently, however, they're either like caged beasts (which can be frustrating) or you're risking legal trouble &/or hurting yourself and others.

The Miata is at times a bit slower than ideal, while the Supra TT I used to own could be excessively fast at times. Enjoy your S2000's, IMO as stock they're in the sweet spot of being exciting yet having usable performance for the real world (I'd say the same about my CS). Bigger, faster cars often provide more luxuries, more comfort, etc, but the incremental fun factor can be very small relative to the extra cost.

My $.02, YMMV...

 

Well basically as a human being, when we move to another level, we'll get bored of it and want more. Just a human nature. All about relativity.

 

I disagree, at least in this instance. My ///M is faster than my S was at all ranges. Off the line, top end, doesn't matter it's faster. And yet...the S was more fun. Turns out you can't go 140 everywhere you want to (seriously, that's when my current car starts getting fun) but 25 is doable pretty much everywhere...and I found the S fun to drive.

By your logic I'd only be happy with something faster than my current car, and yet I have every intention to go back to a car that is clearly slower, with the only intention being the fun factor.

 

Well... I didn't really mean that way... probably I should've phrased better.

 

My old rear drive corolla is in my opinion an extremely fun car to drive. Much like the miata mentioned above it has no ABS or traction control, corolla had 115hp in 1985(I'm sure a few horses have escaped since then..). Still, absolutely fun. Revvy, tightly geared, I can go WOT much more liberally before it becomes a major issue safety wise.

Plus there is something to be said about cars with few aids/buffers and little power. They urge you to drive them for all it's worth, you feel much more compelled to ring the cars out for all they are worth with almost anger. Fighting for every 'nth bit of speed and momentum. Where as faster cars(and many with many driver aids) you simply find the limits of fear and back off before truly trying to 'drive' the car.
Before the ego's start flying with 'xxx slow car was too slow and it simply wont go any faster, I can/do really ravage yyy faster car'. there are very few aren't too many people on this board that can take an s2000, or corvette, or evo on an autocross course and beat a nationally competitive driver in a stock miata. 99.99% of us have a lot more room to grow then we sometimes would like to admit.(), and that is what I'm getting at.

 

I learned this many years ago when I spent a day switching between a 911 and a 912. Most here may not have even seen the Porsche 912's. The 912 was slow but you could drive it 9/10's everywhere and not get in trouble.

Three times in the past I've traded Corvettes for slow cars simply because the slow cars could be more fun to play with.

 

It's true that faster cars are not always more fun to drive. But then it really comes down to personal preference. Some people like big hp and torque that push them into their seats when the gas pedal is floored, such as the ones who's prefer drag-racing to cornering and such. Those people generally find a torquey Mustang or muscle car more fun than an S2000 or Miata.

 

I agree to an extent. If you only drive on public roads, then yes, anything much over 250hp is probably overkill. But, if you track your cars occasionally, a Miata, S2000, heck even a Cayman S could start to feel slow on the road courses here in TX. That is one reason I keep going back to the Vettes. It's the only car that is reasonably priced that has a fighting chance of running with most anything on the track.

 

I agree with the OP- driving around in a mk1 mr2 is an absolute blast, and it doesn't make 100 ft-lbs. It feels like a go-kart and even makes the S2000 seem like a heavy car.

 

Most race car drivers that I have seen on TV say its better and more fun to drive a slow car fast than a fast car fast. They say that because you have to ring everything out of the slow car and it forces you to be a better driver, particulary on a track, where a faster car can mask driver error.

That being said....I'd take a Porsche 911 GT3 over anything if I had the $$$.