I have a track car in mind, but I need to due diligence so I'll open it up to the floor.

Budget is £7.5k, absolutely no more than that.

MUST be road legal and have a roof (even if it's removable)

minimum power to weight equivalent to 240bhp and 1300kg. add 10% to the power ifyou're suggesting a 4WD car.

Mustn't require a lot of fettling. So nothing clearly unreliable.

You can specify a cheaper car and lots of bits.

If it doesn't have a cage then the price must factor that in.

Have at it...

 

Front or Rear wheel drive preference?

I've always fancied a stripped MX-5 for this type of thing, but you'd need a hard top.

Some sort of 3-series seems the other obvious option.

 

http://www.pistonheads.com/sales/1481463.htm

 

or this, left hand drive doesn't matter on track and could easily meet your spec with some heavy electrics removed. http://www.pistonheads.com/sales/1373517.htm could be great fun if not the fastest track car

 

Depends what you want.

I wouldn't personally be bothered about power to weight as much as just weight. But I don't have 'Faster Than You' in my sig......

So, taking reliability into account, it's got to be the predictable-but-dull Beemer I guess;
http://www.pistonheads.com/sales/1474609.htm

MX5 and hard top isn't quick enough for you unless turbo'd, not sure how that affects reliability.

Unless you went FWD and got a 205MI16 or similar (cheaper so cash left over for a fighting fund). Or a rally rep Impreza, but they never seem to be much fun on track.

 

I'd go with an E36 too.

I'd rather have a properly sorted 'nearly' model than an average M3 for that job.

 

No bike engines (they spend more time broken than running on track days)

Don't mind FWD but it's got to be a good one.

The reason why power is an issue is that it's going to spend a lot of time at the nurburgring where on certain sections you're very bored unless you have a certain amount of power to weight.

I'd like as light as possible. I wish a VX220 Turbo was cheap enough to be honest.

It's worth pointing out the car I have in mind is a stripped prepped E36 M3 5 Speed with all the right bits.

 

I know this is a crazy thing to say on an S2000 forum, but what about an S2000?

What about an MR2 Turbo?

 

S2000 would need work for a track car (coilovers, cage, harness)

Can you get a reliable caged harness MR2 of a decent pace and weight?

 

Early Impreza/evo, some suspension mods to dial out understeer.
MR2 turbo.