What car 10k autox fun track day edition

The wife gave me te thumbs up to start looking for a new toy car once I sell the fiat. I posted earlier this week about 10k miatas, but she said I should ask the brain trust what other options there are.

This will be autocrosser monthly, I don't care about being competitive in any class, just fun. Probably do a couple track dAys a year. The main thing I need is it to be as reliable and low maintenance as possible. Spending every spare minute in the garage has got to stop. 10k is the total budget for car, catching up on maintenance and any mods. Besides miata what are some things I should look at?

E36 M3. Faster than a Miata, hardtop, has a back seat, can fit track tires and tools and whatnot in it without a trailer. Lots of fun to drive. Huge knowledge base and parts availability. Will be more expensive on consumables.

I would go with a Miata for like 5k or so and then use the rest for parts and upgrades

Sonic wrote: E36 M3. Faster than a Miata, hardtop, has a back seat, can fit track tires and tools and whatnot in it without a trailer. Lots of fun to drive. Huge knowledge base and parts availability. Will be more expensive on consumables.

Agree 100%. I've owned multiple Miatas and multiple M3s. I'd much rather have an M3 as a track car. Amazingly competent in stock form, easily upgradable and, for me, a little more reassuring having some structure around me.

RX8

Sonic wrote: E36 M3. Faster than a Miata, hardtop, has a back seat, can fit track tires and tools and whatnot in it without a trailer. Lots of fun to drive. Huge knowledge base and parts availability. Will be more expensive on consumables.

Came to post this as well.

E36 M3 with money to spare for trackday entry and tires :)

A few years ago when I was looking a good e36 m3 cost about the OP's full budget. I can't imagine they have come down much.

It's hard to argue with an E36 M3 for a track-day car. Since this will mostly be an autocross / toy car, I'd throw the Toyota MR-S into the ring. I'm not a big fan of the way they look, but they are fun, and would be a blast to autocross. Besides, ugly is in the eye of the beholder.

C4, Mustang GT

amg_rx7 wrote: RX8 with LSx

Fixed and approve.

How serious are you about being competitive?

Solstice, celica, early 2000s camaro, z3, prelude, mini, audi tt, early s2000 may squeak into the budget, civic si/integra/RSX.

Personally, miata or mustang gt would be my choices. Maybe an e46 325 coupe. Holds together better than an e36.

I'd also look at your consumables, which will mainly be tires. Again, that rules heavily in favor of the Miata. I'd put E36 M3 on the list, too, assuming you fix/upgrade the cooling system.

10K will easily get you a good Rx8. Mine has 130000 miles is 10 years old and has been daily driven and autoxed since rebuilding the original engine last year. Fun car that sounds even better than the Miata

I'm an obvious shill for the E36 M3 since I race one now that the E30 of Doom has been decommissioned. I just instructed at the BMW Club Racing school at NJMP with mine - a nearly 20 year old car with stock S52 power and relatively inexpensive full race suspension. I am amazed that it is still one of the fastest cars on any track. It gives up a straight line speed to a Cayman race car or a vette, etc... but the only thing to go around me when I didn't want it to was an E36 M3 with better race craft. Cornering and braking on these things play waaay above their pay grade if you set them up well and they are very easy to be precise with in tight traffic.

Buy one with a driveline in good condition, drop coin on excellent suspension & setup immediately. Use worn out suspension bits as a tool to get a better price because you don't really want any of it.

The Miata is still more pure fun than my E36 M3, at least around town. But after getting t-boned at 25 mph by a ford contour that ran a stop sign 3 years ago, and then having two near death experiences on the road this year, I can't quite shake the feeling that it's not worth orphaning my kids for an extra 2% of fun.

The M3 gives you most of the nimbleness, awesome noises, more grip at stock tire sizes and that glorious power band. Not quite as well suited to the autocross thing and I do like a convertible, but it's a real barrel of monkeys when it's sideways under power. :)

Maintenance isn't awful or particularly frequent, though not as anvil-like as the Miata. And everything is 50-100% more expensive on the bimmer. That's ok, because you get so much more utility that, whatever else you own, the M3 is the car you're going to wind up using as your daily driver. I put it on a policy that limited it to 7,500 miles a year, which was more than I drove the previous E36. I had to go back to a regular policy at 9 months because I was already up to 10K. :)

Boxster.

Joe Gearin wrote: It's hard to argue with an E36 M3 for a track-day car. Since this will mostly be an autocross / toy car, I'd throw the Toyota MR-S into the ring. I'm not a big fan of the way they look, but they are fun, and would be a blast to autocross. Besides, ugly is in the eye of the beholder.

Deffo not ugly.

Miata, E36 and RX8 are all good suggestions. RX8s sell for cheap because of their heavily maintenance-intensive engines, but for a non-DD that won't be a problem for you.

Id say Miata or Mustang. Cheap to buy, wealth of aftermarket parts, cheap to maintain, reliable.

I've compiled a complete list of anything I'd think would be a possibility. I'm now trying to dig up info on each one for pros and cons. Some of these would be pushing the budget a bit, but I wanted to include them.

I'd love it if anyone could help me out with known trouble spots, how much they cost to fix, what to look for etc.

I know the e36 has radiator issues, does it have the rear suspension ripping out too, or is that something else? here is my complete list

C4 vette

C5 vette

WRX

Miata

E36 M3

E46 M3

S2000

MR2

928

968

4th gen fbody

Rx8

Rx7

boxster

Mustang? what years are we talking? i know nothing of stangs after the fox body of my hs days.

Maroon92 wrote:

Joe Gearin wrote: It's hard to argue with an E36 M3 for a track-day car. Since this will mostly be an autocross / toy car, I'd throw the Toyota MR-S into the ring. I'm not a big fan of the way they look, but they are fun, and would be a blast to autocross. Besides, ugly is in the eye of the beholder.

Deffo not ugly.

Like I said......ugly is in the eye of the beholder. I like MR-Spyders, I really do. Good looking they are not. (in my eyes at least) That is an ugly little car, with good looking wheels.

Don't sweat it.....I'm sure there are plenty of cars I find good looking that you'd think are ugly. I mean, you'd be wrong and all, but I can live with that!

Basically anything Fox up for the Mustangs, if you can find a Cobra with the IRS those can handle amazingly.

I would say to make the Camaro and a Mustang on the bottom of the list because of the solid rear axle make them probably the worst handling cars, especially for track days and on the street. I would separate the Mustang Cobra with the Independent rear suspension from the GTs and bump that car over the Camaro/Firebird and Mustang.

Yep, live rears can:t handle worth crap, especially if the track is smooth. The No compromise IRS rear on the Cobra makes it much better than the stick axle cars also.

In reply to espz28: