Best slow-car-to-drive-fast daily?

I'm enjoying the hell out of my SRT4 swapped RT Neon, but its not slow.

A second gen RT Neon with 2.0 is cheap giggles, too.  

I enjoy my daily 2012 Fiat 500 Sport 5 speed....not Abarth....drive it like you stole it and have fun.

Next I would say Corolla GTS 4AGE powered with a manual. Luckily the FWD platform rolls haven't hit crazy AE86 prices 

1995 Suzuki Alto Works RS/Z. Kei car so small, smaller than the 1st gen Honda Insight I had before it. 3 cylinder turbo .66L engine with a 8500rpm read line. All wheel drive and 5 speed. Geared really low. Shifting every 10mph. Always fun driving around town. Highway not so much. My commute is 30mi each way All highway and 70mph is at about 4200rpm. Still fun little thing, makes me smile every time I look at it.

My wife's TR7 coupe with a few mods is an absolute blast to drive "fast".  Its a pretty slow car, but the sounds it makes and the fantastic handling make up for the lack of acceleration.  It feels faster than it is.  It was her dailey driver for the three years prior to this one and despite all the comments contrary, it has been dead reliable. Just need to keep up with the maintenance and be observant of things like fluid levels. 

Porsche 944 (non turbo). Great everything but slow. Great fun to row through the gears. 

Driven5 said:

John Welsh said:

Lately, I've been intrigued by the BMW 128i. Straight n/a 6 cyl and rwd. 

While not particularly quick by modern standards, it does not at all accentuate the sensation of speed the way the OP is talking about either. If it feels like you're going fast in one, you are.

Concur. Way too easy to drive at supralegal speeds.

Budget? Configuration?

Best slow to drive fast IMO is any slow PCar. Fantastic feel, responsive, brakes, shifter, etc. Downsides are obvious but without any criteria I am going to say aircooled 993. :-)

Runner up e30 m3.

I still have a blast driving my little 2wd, 4cyl, 5 speed truck hard. The edge is always near so fun is easy to be had. Its a 2000 nissan frontier that i bought new at like 18y.o.. closing in on 180k miles if i remember right. 
 

and it does truck stuff. 

First gen big block Forte. That was a great car to daily. Torque for days. Brakes and handling that made it entertaining without being too harsh. Just an overall fantastic vehicle. My Rio is coming in as a close second though.

Most anything small with a 4cylinder and a 5 speed can be fun if you drive it right.

I once heard the Mazda2 described as having the soul of an 80s hot hatch. That sounds pretty good to me.

 See, this is why I ask these kinds of questions here. Love the insight and "reviews" from owners and where better to have so many? (btw, anytime I consider a car I don't know I do a search on this site to see what others have been through with the car). 

 I have had some of the suggested cars (MR2, Miata), but never considered some of the others. Mazda2?? Rio? More cars to research!

What about Minis? 

...and I'm still only about two hours away from Indy...

In reply to stan :

From everything I've read minis are up near the top of the fun to drive, but huge maintenance nightmares. 

In reply to clutchsmoke :

Mini S aren't slow cars, they're not fast, but quick. Maybe a non-S is a slow car, but... why?

They are super fun to drive however.

Toyota Land Cruiser

I've been daily driving a Mazdaspeed Miata for six years. Still puts a smile on my face! It has enough hp to keep you from getting run over but that also gives it enough hp to put your license at risk if you're not careful. 

cruisermatt said:

Toyota Land Cruiser

Interesting. I do like driving my Ranger though, so maybe a (slightly) dropped 5-speed mini-truck would do. (The Ranger is 4X4).

Knew a guy that owned one of these (when was the last time you saw one?).  Could pretty much drive hard all day and no one would notice but he had fun doing it.

Ditto for these if you prefer British

Personally, for vintage sporting with excellent handling, you can't do better than these, although the striking styling makes it hard to fly under the Radar.

I've had 914s, MR2s and Fieros, but never that mid-engined car.

 Like the Fiat. And there's one for sale locally...

I've got a Mazda3 with an improved suspension and good brakes as a DD.  Not too far off a 5 door Miata.

I really like my Fiesta ST.  It's a very fun car to drive and reliable (so far).  It's also a fairly practical car with a decent back seat and a hatch.  I've done 9 hour drives with no pain.  Not slow you say?  The SCCA put it in H-stock for some reason.

RabidBullFrog said:

1995 Suzuki Alto Works RS/Z. Kei car so small, smaller than the 1st gen Honda Insight I had before it. 3 cylinder turbo .66L engine with a 8500rpm read line. All wheel drive and 5 speed. Geared really low. Shifting every 10mph. Always fun driving around town. Highway not so much. My commute is 30mi each way All highway and 70mph is at about 4200rpm. Still fun little thing, makes me smile every time I look at it.

I'm not hearing any downsides.

c0rbin9 said:

Do I have to say it? Yes, that car, you know the one.

Kia Rondo?

Fiat X1/9 as mentioned before.  Also, Yugo - the 1.5l swapped one I had was a riot.

Like someone reading my mind (and recent browsing history).  $10k budget and seem to be looking at BRZs and cheap BMW 3s of various colors lately.  A few Boxsters as well.  (Regret selling both MR2s at the moment.)

Slightly off-topic, but it occurs to me as I read this thread that collectively we clearly have widely divergent definitions of "slow". Quite a few of the cars mentioned here are not, to my view, slow. That said, I'm also not entirely sure how I would quantify slow in a street car. I suppose it would have something to do with how the car felt at legal or near-legal speeds, and perhaps the amount of total vehicle performance that was usable in regular driving circumstances. Having a car where you can only really use all of its power on rare occasions is just frustrating to me, whereas something with relatively little power requires much more attention and engagement.

Since it was brought up, I'll use the 128i as an example. It's somewhere around 240hp in a ~3300lbs car. Not a huge amount of power by today's standards, but even so there are fairly limited opportunities to really use it without major consequences. The suspension, chassis, and tires (granted, my car is not stock) are sufficient to generate so much cornering force with so little drama that, again, it can really only be used every so often. I'm not suggesting it's not a fun car - it is - but I wish I could drive it harder more regularly.

Though for the most part they don't stack up well to the 128i in terms of raw performance, my other cars offer more accessible fun within reasonable street driving boundaries. The Saab 900S with a measly 125hp is endlessly entertaining because you are always trying to get as much out of it as possible. My modified 2002 is the same, albeit more powerful and lighter, but it is a very different driving experience because of the power band and the gearing. The new ND2 Miata is arguably faster accelerating than the 128i in terms of power-to-weight, but with the stock suspension tuning allowing more chassis movement in cornering, and the engine tuned to make its power at the high end of the rev range, it's more engaging than the BMW when going slower. While lousy for the track and in terms of ultimate performance, it makes for a fun driving experience at speeds that allow me to enjoy it more often.

Anyway, didn't mean to sidetrack this, but I needed to work through the question to wrap my head around it.