LENSPEED

By James Wong

The E60 M5 is one of the all-time greats of the BMW M Division – it is also, by empirical feel at least, one of the most polarising. Never was a set of contradictions placed all in one five-door saloon so controversial. A high-revving V10 engine capable in excess of 500bhp, a shuddering SMG gearbox, a luxury interior and four doors of a typical 5er. It just didn’t make much sense, especially when compared to the ultra-sensible super-saloon F10 M5, which ironically righted all the wrongs of its predecessor but in the process also removing some of the zenith qualities which made it so special.

However, we are not going to talk about the E60 vs. F10 here this time. Instead, what I’ll be writing about is the comical way of how we car enthusiasts spot a E60 M5 from a fakie wannabe. It is probably the most copied car in the entire BMW range, for some reason targeted by posers who just love their 520i’s to look like the real V10 monster. In fact, I reckon 60-70% of the ‘M5s’ you see in Singapore are actually fake. So what’s the procedure we usually take when one comes your way? Here’s mine…

1) Don’t bother with bodykit, that’s pretty replicable. Try wing mirrors. FAIL/PASS

2) Side vents just after the front wheelarch. FAIL/PASS

3) Rims are easily replicable so you can skip those (think Taiwan made). Brakes – get this right and you’re on to spotting a true M5. The real stuff are huge and will usually fill whatever available space there is on the standard M5 rims – FAIL/PASS

4) Rear exhausts – easily replicable but usually the V10s are pretty distinct at full chat. On low throttle they sound even less boomy than the four pots or I6s. Spot on! FAIL/PASS

5) If you’ve reached the interior (wow you peered so deeply eh?), look at the steering wheel, gear knob, instrumentation and seats – seats in particular, they’re expensive stuff to replicate. FAIL/PASS

There, with this no-nonsense layman 5-step guide, you can be a borderline psychopath car spotter too. Right on.

By James Wong

Driving impressions on the E63 with the new 5.5 bi-turbo V8 will be coming up. But as a taster, here’s a video of my ride in the equally endowed CLS63 AMG.

By Gerald Yuen

Which part of the specs sheet do you notice first whenever a new coupe rolls out of the showroom? Is it the instant magnetic appeal of the inflated horsepower output, how much volumetric weight those humongous cylinders can stuff to provide those jaw dropping torque figures, or maybe even justifying the purchase with your partner, by claiming that it can swallow shopping bags in empty compartments that only seem huge in your naïve eyes?

If I were to answer this question three years back, I would definitely be harping on the ongoing fascination about new and improved technology by manufacturers, being able to extract the most ridiculous numerical advantage over rivals, just by the inclusion of a couple of cylinders or force feeding superchargers into the already jammed-packed engine bay. Fast-forward 1000 days, and here I am being all grumpy about these additions, because they coincide with the first quantitative item that I look for in the specs sheet now – weight.

My answer might seem surprising to some, and I wouldn’t blame those seeking to disagree with me. Big engines and high torque output will certainly provide any driver that instant sensation when push turns to shove. Simply flex your lower right limb, let the engine rake up the horses, and there you are at illegal speeds before you know it, reeling in the horizon along the way. Maybe you can consider asking yourself this question: is power output the only vital statistic? If yes, is it due to the fact that high performance translates to the acquisition of a better driving machine?

In more ways than one, cars with towering performance figures supply the avenue for technological advancement and bragging rights. Why hold back when engineers know that they have powerplants capable of gathering digits in their favour? Performance numbers might not necessarily appeal to car enthusiasts (and by this, I mean those who actually like to drive). Toyota’s 86 might be down on brute strength, but the finesse when flogged hard through corners puts many plus-sized machines (with plus-sized outputs) to shame.

Physics allows us to believe that we can push objects further with less mass, and the same logic applies to vehicles. Imagine a sub-tonne Mazda Miata strutting her anorexic load on B roads. This makes hardly any sense to wedge a heavy duty V8 in coupes for switchbacks. The Miata has been hailed as one of the best handling mass production cars to ever grace public roads (although it has also polarised opinions), and rightly so, after having the privilege to try a couple of NA 1.6 on proper roads. Her divine talent to direct her path on switchbacks according to my demanding limbs transfers the limelight from “marvelous” technological modernity, to the good old days where flyweight is the key to wring driving enjoyment behind the wheel.

It would do no harm keeping the curb weight of your intended acquisition in mind. Focus on how the power delivery is being fed to the driver during the test drive. Does it gather speed fast due to the strength of its heartbeat, or because of the featherweight chassis-drivetrain-powertrain combo? I’ll select the latter in a jiffy.

By James Wong

I’m supposed to be starting on my law revision now, but in the interests of keeping my writing alive and peppy I’ll just slip in a post here now.

Yesterday, I did what most petrolheads would be familiar with: waking up early in the morning for a drive. Usually the starts are just before the break of dawn where everybody would still be thankfully in their beds and held on weekends (which takes out the working crowd and the hang-over zombies), so the roads were blissfully quiet all up till 8am. I was dreading the crawl through London (yes, even at 5am on a Sunday morning) but thankfully very few road diversions and crazy drivers were active that morning.

Reaching the meet-up point I was already greeted by a huge contingent of cars, every one of them the proper ‘PH cars’ that are frequently debated about on the forum. I’m not supposed to divulge too much details of the drive due to privacy reasons, but I can talk about my own car so let’s shift the focus on the MR2.

My group consisted of the Japanese cars which included the MX-5, MR2 Turbo, S13, Starlet and the Celica GT4. It was a nice warm introduction for me to meet some like-minded drivers. We headed off and the roads were – I cannot emphasise enough – fabulous. They were unmarked on the GPS and seemed to cross endless green fields to either side that was akin to a private road. Sometimes, we would cross a creek or a dense forest that is not unlike a scene driving through Germany. Then we would suddenly reach larger roads and onto those flowing A-roads that allowed a higher speed.The route was simply amazing.

I rounded up the rear of the convoy and found the power barely adequate to keep up. Every acceleration run required me to bring the engine to its redline in gears 1, 2 and 3. Can’t complain though – the good thing about underpowered cars is the opportunity to drive them hard at completely sane speeds. I enjoyed the shifting, so precise and measured. The steering also felt a tad better than what I reported before about it being slow, but still I’d prefer more deftness. Balance was perfect though; think that was what helped me through some of the corners where it was the balance and not the acceleration that allowed me to keep up.

Also – unintentionally – I hit the rev limiter once while overtaking (requiring second gear and then third halfway through the overtake) and the 16 year old engine felt as good as new. On the way back I garnered the confidence to try scrubbing a roundabout (if you catch my drift) and finally, for the first time since I got the car, the tail became mobile. One quick deft flick of the steering wheel was all it took to get the car back in line. So natural, I didn’t really feel like it was enough.

More photos and videos soon! Back to my full-time job of studying.

Photo credit: Rob Pepe of Shutter-Life

By James Wong

So in a rather hasty fashion, I’ve went ahead and bought the third MR2 I saw. That’s a better record than the Mk2 GTI, which was the first car I saw and then signed for. Already things are looking much rosier than what I had experienced with the patchy GTI. The car’s got a full service history, an excellent exterior and interior condition, new tyres, a re-fitted cambelt, a new water pump, a full service (oil and filter change) and a coolant flush. All that’s on top of a year’s MOT and tax. I am not at all disturbed by the 156,000 miles it has done, you can’t even tell from the car’s condition apart from the slightly wrinkled leather and breathless electric windows.

Just as well, I had planned a visit to the Mini factory in Oxford and the Bentley factory in Crewe so the MR2 would be making its first road trip just a day after I brought it home. A total of about 400 miles was done in the span of two days. A couple of impressions of the SW20 if you’d allow me after all those hours of driving:

1) The car is loud
Apparently I underestimated the noise that permeates the cabin from the engine just behind the cabin. It’s always present, slightly intrusive at 50mph and encouraging permanent ear damage at 70mph. It’s not an bad noise, but not a very pleasant one either. If the car had a 6th gear it would have improved its cruising capabilities considerably. For a  1996 car it’s rather surprising it hasn’t got one. At full throttle though, the car sounds rather good for a four pot, very Japanese in its delivery (read: tinny) and yet a perverse kind of pleasure much like how a boy racer would savour it.

2) GT or sports car?
The SW20 is often criticised for its increase in size and weight which blunted its handling. I can see how this is so. The car feels quite large, not helped by its slow steering rack which takes longer than I would like to respond to inputs. That’s compounded, I would imagine, when the car’s oversteering and corrective steering is needed. When I get the chance to do that I’ll report on how that feels here.

The engine is also very light on torque, like a smear on a very wide surface, and so it spreads thin. There is basically a lot more go at the top end, so going above 5,000rpm to get a move on is rather typical when driving this car. When it reaches that power band, it accelerates decently quick – not rapid by any standards – but enough to have fun. That means the car is rather tiresome in the city and also on the motorway.

The engine’s characteristics lead to the next question – the engine needs to be canned like a sports car. But the car actually rides very well on the motorway and, given a sixth gear, it would have been a great cruiser. It also feels better on flowing A-roads than switchbacks on B-roads and feels nicely balanced. So why is it that the car seems to be built as a GT but with an engine that doesn’t have the torque to do the GT work? You would quickly point out that the Turbo model solved the issue, but then that model was never officially sold in the UK. Another minor note too: the wind buffering is pretty serious on the car, so you’d have to watch the wheel pretty carefully.

3) Steering a landmark case of heftiness vs. feel
Most drivers cannot tell the difference between a heavy steering and a feelsome one. I have problems myself too. But the MR2′s one made it very clear. The steering is heavy, especially at low speed – requiring some muscle to maneuver around car parks.  At speed, it feels better but then it feels like there is slightly too much turning needed to get the car to turn (due to the slow steering rack as mentioned above). The car doesn’t follow your inputs fast enough and lacks feel. Well, that’s my take on it anyway.

4) Higher limits
The mid-engined layout is normally reserved for exotica, but Toyota went against the grain and built one for the mass market, an enduring move that lasted as the Mk3 came after the millennium. The balance on offer is exceptional. It’s nothing like I’ve ever driven – so little weight deficiencies at the wrong places. It really does feel I can push the car really hard and it will forgive. This Rev 3 model apparently also solved the snap oversteer issues – it seems to be true so far as I am finding great difficulty to break traction from the rear tyres. It would probably be a good idea to try it eventually though so I’d know where the limits are. But at this moment I haven’t found it.

5) Odd weight transfer on braking
On moderate braking, the rear is noticeably loose and twitchy while the front secure. I am finding this rather odd. The larger brakes are at the rear because, as my half scientific mind would tell me, that’s where most of the weight is. But it seems to be that there is a brake bias towards the front wheels. This warrants further investigation with hard braking. The dealer said the car doesn’t have ABS but I have a ABS light that’s on the dash that lights up – so I’ll try that too. Thankfully, the car doesn’t produce much brake dust in the process so the rims still look really clean.

6) Odds and ends
When getting a used car, you should probably always change the windscreen wipers if they haven’t been changed for a while. I was driving at night through stormy rain near Birmingham (much heavier than what I am used to in the UK) and the wipers were near useless. I then spent 30 minutes trying to fit in new ones but then gave up. I confess, I am a car enthusiast who doesn’t know how to change a windscreen wiper. The next morning, I went to a workshop which sorted me out in 30 seconds. The point is, the old wipers made what was a dangerous first drive in a mid-engined, RWD car in the rain at night an absolute death trap. Thankfully the car and I made it through!

Also, what a revelation to finally have a working radio. The speakers on the MR2 are also very, very good. Love the detailing of the rear window too – curved beautifully. Could do with more storage space in the interior but otherwise it’s very spacious for two. Boots are also very useful.

Alright, that’s the first report of the car. I did a video introduction of the car too but I think that might take a while as I mounted the GoPro at a slightly mental angle. So I’ll get that sorted.

By James Wong

Just a quick update here. The search for the replacement has finally made some progress and now we are down to two choices: The very special and individualistic 1997 Toyota MR2 N/A or the peppy 2009 Clio 200 Cup.

It’s a really tough choice. So tough, in fact, that it’s the main thing that I am thinking about these days (or, to the detriment of school, weeks). It wasn’t difficult to eliminate the other two choices. The RX7 is by all measure a fabulous car, but as a ownership prospect it proved too daunting for a short 1.5 year period, especially for a student like me with limited time for fettling about. The Peugeot, while lovely in all of its handling glory, has two of the Must-Nots of being French and Old. It is OK to be one of those, but not both.

So that leaves the two – Toyota and Renault. Odd choices you might say at first, but give it deeper thought and then it becomes clear that these two cars are the antithesis of each other, the contradictions so great that it is very clear that both has to be considered very seriously. Furthermore, it is because of their complete difference to each other that it is so very difficult to accept just one. There is just so much to learn from either car.

It is even hard to place my priorities nowadays, but given a push I’d merit fun to drive as the most important factor, followed by reliability and then practicality. Both cars are fun to drive, but out of the box – the Clio is likely to satisfy more. The Clio would probably be more reliable (coming with some warranty too). And of course, the Clio wins on the practicality front. Easy choice?

Not really. The Clio costs 11,000 pounds – which is just about 8 times more expensive than a good condition MR2. Is it really worth the extra money?

There’s also the “problem” of it being FF. I know I have been unfairly discriminating against front-wheel drive cars, but then the situation here is that I’ve owned two FF cars in the last few years. Some part of me says it is time for a change to a different layout. I’ve always liked to own a RWD – but is the MR2 a RWD worth owning? The N/A model is just about the mid-range of the pack of those sold in the UK – the basic being the lower model and the Turbo the most powerful of the range. The Clio, however, is probably one of the best front-drivers in the modern day. So, excellent FWD or, according to reviews anyway, a mediocre RWD mid-engined car? I’d say that excellence matters more, because ‘I’ll have nothing but the best’ is what I always like to say. I mean, there’ll be another time in my future where I can own a RWD worth owning, I reckon. But will I be able to pick up a Mk2 MR2 then (which has always been something I’d like to own)?

All’s said and done, it’s not an easy choice at all. Despite the price gulf. Despite how different they are. Despite everything.

Time’s helping though. By next weekend I should have something new parked downstairs. Whichever I choose, it won’t be a mistake.

By James Wong

I may have been driving my 2006 MkV GTI for quite a while, but my car ownership history indicates that the average age of my cars is 15 years old. I’m no stranger to something from the 1990s – I have been observing and appreciating cars ever since I could say car brands. In fact, I could still remember telling my dad that I liked the ‘lion’ logo on the back of a Peugeot 406 when one was in front of us at the drive-through McDonald’s at King Albert’s Park. No kidding; I thought it was the most beautiful car in the world. Strange era indeed.

My first 90′s car, the NA Miata MX-5, didn’t feel like it was nearly 20 years old. The gearshift was click-clack slick, something that I only came to appreciate only a few years after I sold the car. The engine started every single time, the suspension supple and robust and the exhaust throaty. In fact, I took for granted every single aspect of the car. It had such a store of perfect balance and exploitability that I never dipped into. Every single day, I still wished I had it in my garage.

One thing I especially took for granted was its reliability. Sure it had some rattles from the interior, but otherwise it ran just as well as any modern car. It must be the Japanese engineering. I was thinking to myself, hey, why are people buying new cars at all?

Fast forward to 2010, when I was on the front porch of a man from Hackbridge, London. He jumps his car to life (which took a couple of tries), pumped up his tyres (which must have been left flat for several days) and said the second gear crunch I heard was normal for all Mk2 GTIs. Oh, and where would normally be a radio I see a bunch of wires. ‘I took it out after someone tried to break into the car’, he quips.

So despite all of that, I bought it. Why? The car’s exterior and interior was immaculate, especially the interior. Maybe they replaced all of it. I don’t know. But I liked it. And I was desperate for a car before my reading week was over. Coming from Singapore, it seemed rather cheap too. How mistaken I was. Anyway, I handed over 1500 quid and happily drove it home just like that. I was so intrigued and thrilled at the same time that I could buy a car from someone’s porch and drive it home on the same day. I was on a high – I had a car, it feels good, I bought it for a fraction of what it sells for back home. If my MX-5 was so reliable, and this car looks and goes rather normally, all should be well. Right?

Sadly, in the following 6 months, I had to call 999 to help me push my car to the side street after I got stranded in the middle of a 6-lane thoroughfare in the thick of winter, replace my tyres, replace my brakes, replace my cooling system, my clutch cable, exhaust and a whole assortment of suspension parts. And a whole lot of other things I rather not remember. Then I opined: what a fool I was. Thankfully, I had this experience which taught me a couple of good lessons about buying used cars.

After all the fixes, the car felt great. Sure, it isn’t particularly fast, but I like how it flows down a road. Very chuckable, very easy to drive and place, extremely practical and a great daily. In other words, it’s some kind of magic. But cheap prices and servicing aside, owning an old car isn’t all easy. There’s still this fear lingering in the background every single time when I unlock the car (can it unlock?) and twist the ignition (does it start?). The heart always skips a beat when the car first cranks but thankfully the car has spared me from the heart-stopping moments so far. Well, apart from one time when it died and only started again after a good ol’ prayer…

There are other foibles. Parts might be difficult to come by. Standards we’re used to in 2012 may be so far ahead of the benchmark in 1990 that it’s laughable. You aren’t doing very well in a 90′s car by way of safety either. And 9km/l from a 1.8L with 116bhp (probably far less today)? Not great. So we car enthusiasts shouldn’t totally discount modern cars. We’ve come to lean on them, forgetting that just only a decade or two ago, our cars were built very differently from today.

That said, old cars are still the bomb. I like to draw parallels, just like everybody else who found out just how old my Mk2 is, with my age. In the past 22 years, I have grown and matured to be a man. In the past 22 years, my Mk2 has witnessed an inevitable decline into old age. The reality is, as the years tear past, old cars are just going to be rarer, more troublesome, more impractical and in all just a headache. But you know what? It is worth every bit of the trouble. Just be prepared for an adventure (ie. inconveniences), a laugh (say, a broken clutch cable) and lots of love (when it is 2am and the car wouldn’t start). As car enthusiasts, I don’t think that’s too much to ask of us.

By James Wong

I must narrate this down. It’s getting unbearable how people think the Mercedes E-Class is so comfortable and so relaxing. It may have been for models of the past, but of the W212 and especially in Avantgarde guise, I have to beg to differ.

We forget the importance of comfort so much. Comfort does not mean softly sprung. Comfort does not mean being a softie. It certainly doesn’t mean wallowing about. Let’s talk a bit about what it really is.

A Lexus is relaxing and cossetting, but does it really expound the qualities of being comfortable? An unruffled ride must not only be agreeable but also be at one with the flow and momentum of a car. For instance, a softly sprung American car (of which there are many bad examples) will bounce, rebounding several times after hitting a pothole. This after-effect or aftershock resulting from the irregular road is not comfortable. It, therefore, rejects the notion of softly-sprung cars being comfortable.

Also, some people out there think comfort is for sedate drivers. Oh how short-sighted is this view on so many levels? On one, ride comfort is tied inexplicably to how much tyre the car can put on the road given irregular surfaces. Yes, you can have a rock-hard suspension, thereby giving the impression that you are indeed sitting low and having as much rubber on the road as you can, but is it really the best solution? Perhaps on the race track, where the tarmac is very smooth, but not on public roads, and definitely not on roads as pockmarked as the UK’s. A hard suspension on irregular surfaces will hop and jump and generally not be on the road where it is supposed to be – thereby sacrificing precious traction and causing jarring imbalance to a car’s stability. A well-sorted suspension is such a great contributor to a car’s drivability and fun factor that I will go as far to say that believers of harder suspension = better handling need a major rethink of their car knowledge. So comfort isn’t really as simple as soft, it’s also about how a car flows down a road.

So now that we know what comfort is, we come back to the W212. It’s funny how nowadays, the extras actually detract from the full-on best experience of cars. I have a strong feeling that the base spec, 16″ comfort suspension E-Class is the best model to buy. No need for the fancy Avantgarde pack with the lower and stiffer suspension or the AMG kit. How about this – the Avantgarde suspension is about as a comfortable as a brick. At low to medium speeds, which is what you will experience most in Singapore roads, the suspension is hopeless. It is jarring, unnecessarily stiff and unfriendly, completely at odds with the E-Class values. Over humps, you might mistake the car for losing a spring or two over the ordeal. Now, I know it’s supposed to be sportier suspension, but it definitely does not need to be that firm. Sure, the car handles nicely but it’s not worth the trade-off in ride comfort at all, not for an E-Class at least. Like mentioned before, flow is more important.

OK, I have an inkling on why the car feels as such. On German tarmac, it’ll probably be a whole lot better. Couple that to the fact that the E-Class is usually likely to cover long distances on the Autobahn most of its life – and that I must say it does very, very well – the car engineers probably didn’t foresee the problem of the jarring ride to be happening so often as the car wasn’t built to crawl in cities. Sadly, a large proportion of them do just that for their whole lives. For some reason, the suspension seems tuned to high-speed, relatively smooth driving but is completely pants at the slower stuff. This applies to the gearbox as well.

If you’ve driven any of the 5-speed Mercedes autoboxes, you probably didn’t have a problem with them before until you encounter them paired with the new turbo-ed engines. Given the peaky delivery of the engines (despite having a light pressure turbo, the E is still a very heavy car for 1.8 litres), the gearbox drags the engines to ungentlemanly levels before it switches gear. This is so unacceptable I don’t know where to begin. For one, why give a 2011 car inferior 5-speed gearbox technology when competitors are already going to 6, 7 or 8 speeds? Second, why is the darn gearbox so poorly paired with the engine? Third, why do the old 5-speeders in the W211 actually feel better? Fourth, why the heck am I in third gear at 60km/h with the engine revving at 3,200rpm? Shift up!

My theory is that in a temperate climate, the turbo engine probably has to work less to give the power delivery, thus when tested at those climates the gearbox functions well. That concurs with my experience when driving the E in cool weather – it does seem a lot smoother. In the tropical climate however, the engine probably produces less power, which probably messes up the tuning of the gearbox with the engine.

Again, MB probably tested the car on high-speed runs, which did not test the quality of the shifts as the car cruised on top gear anyway. As to why it feels better in the W211? Probably the instantaneous torque of the old supercharged engine helped to mask any lag in the gearbox. I have no explanation for why the 5-speed is still around though. I think Mercedes knows too, which is why all E-Class models will get the 7-speeder from mid-2011. Nice way to leave current W212 drivers in the lurch.

Mercedes really needs to sort these little issues out. It can’t allow its most popular model, the E-Class, to stray from its core values. Sure, most magazines you read out there say the car has gone back to its roots in the W212. I say most definitely not, not after driving the car for a good year and knowing its faults in and out. Oh, and Mercedes still doesn’t do quality control well enough. The suspension is already making noises at low-speed. That’s only after a year and 18,000km.

I guess that’s why Mercedes is now the third-place brand behind Audi and BMW in global sales. For my love of the 3 pointed star, criticism is the best way to mend broken products.

PS. In the interest of this article, I would very much like to try a W212 in standard spec – ie. not Avantgarde or AMG. If you are keen to contribute to the knowledge of the article and allow a test drive, please get in touch!

By James Wong

Selling a car has always been difficult.

There’s the emotional attachment, part of which stems from the experience of time spent with the car. The other part, which is a lot more painful and starkly clear, is the money spent: a car is a money pit no matter how you try to justify it. So with all of that investment, naturally, you would look for returns. Selling a car at what you may deem as fair value would probably appear ridiculous to any prospective buyer. But that is how it works. One party has to give, and poof – suddenly thousands of dollars disappear into thin air.

I have two cars in my ownership now – both Volkswagens. I won’t deny that I am tired of at least one of them. I have worked the German front-wheel drive formula for a long time. Actually, it’s only been 2 years. But in a young man’s life, that is rather lengthy.

One, a 1990 Mk2 GTI 8v, was bought in haste and then repaired in haste as well. Young man mistakes aside, it has been a faithful car, but alas, it has also been rather anodyne. Predictable handling, unbeatable practicality and ease of driving are great traits, but I am made hungry for thrills because of all of this dependability. Unfortunately, I might live to regret it sooner than I think, but then the young ‘uns shouldn’t be afraid to live, right?

The other, a 2006 MkV GTI, has the tricked-out go-faster bits. The ECU chip, the exhaust, the brakes, the anti-roll bar. Yes, all good things. It’s been a better experience than the Mk2, I think, not least because it is at least more reliable. There’s also a shed load more power and torque, plus that gearbox is still a novelty in 2012 in a hatchback. I like this car. In fact, anything I change to after this would probably be a step back in terms of an all-round package. Well, I’ll just see who will pay my price. If nobody steps forward, I am quite happy sticking with it as well (turbo engine and DSG gearbox, please do not live up to expectations and fail prematurely).

So let’s focus on the Mk2 GTI. It’s a UK car, so I am looking for a UK replacement. God knows how much I have toiled with the dastardly insurers in looking for a new car. Car insurance in the UK is shockingly expensive, pure extortion, unpredictable, surprising and ridiculous. I guess it’s also some reflection on how the country is. Just look at the Hammersmith flyover issue that’s been hot in the news now. But I guess that’s for another story.

After all of that hunting high and low in the last couple of months, exploring cars as diverse as a air-cooled Porsche 911 to a BMW M5, I have come up with a list of the following (coincidentally, this has also been sent to my dad as a proposal).

1) Mazda RX-7 FD3S

2) Toyota MR2 W20

3) Renaultsport Clio 200 Cup

4) Peugeot 306 Rallye

Peel below the choices above and my reasons start to appear quite quickly. The RX-7 needs no introduction as an utterly bonkers car, yet also something that you would never own, with all of the talk of its unreliability and problems killing any thoughts of practical ownership. Yet, it remains a truly special automobile and surely one of the most beautiful ever to come out of Japan. It also has such a special motor, the rotary, twin-turbo’ed officially in this model to produce mind-boggling power in that era. All that power, of course, has come to haunt the engine, which can barely keep its own even in a naturally aspirated guise. Still, its small displacement makes it attainable for me in terms of insurance, which is quite a surprise given the car’s reputation. I am sure you can see the reason why it makes my list.

The MR2 is up there because I first fell in love with how it looks. Having owned a NA Miata before, I am a sucker for pop-up headlights. The car is also mid-engined, something rather special in its price bracket and it’s not a bad engine either, the 3S-GE which is good for 178bhp in its final production spec. I like the gearshift action too, plus the practical and sensible interior. What isn’t so great is its 2-seater restriction, which means no big road trips with the lads. However, it ticks all of the right boxes – although – because of insurance I am denied the turbo model, which I think is the more focused driver’s car of the MR2 range. No denying that the NA model is a special one too, definitely a driver’s car and a candidate for the perfect steer.

The newest car of the lot is the Clio. A stick shift, good looks and a great engine plus supreme handling makes this the most sensible car of the lot (of course, you pay for it in the purchase price, which is at least double anything else here). But I’ve always loved those Recaros, plus French front-drivers always had a different handling temperament when compared to the German hatches. That’s something I have wanted to try ever since I got recommended by a friend to the world of French hot hatches…

Which brings me to the 306 Rallye. Probably the most sensible old Pug to own and with killer lift-off oversteer I am raring to go try. Dirt cheap too as these cars have reached nearly the bottom of their depreciation curve. The only way is up as less and less of these stay on the market. I’ll settle for a GTi6 too.

So, clearly, all cars I would be so happy to drive and noticeably, nothing German for now (either too much of the same formula or too frickin’ expensive to insure and upkeep). What are your thoughts on these cars? Write to me if you have any other suggestions which I should be looking at (although I am pretty sure I have considered nearly every car in the market today). Sickeningly, I had to resort to search up 318is models as well as diesel Fiestas in my desperation for cheaper insurance quotes. If I ever do that again, do remind me why I am writing for Lenspeed and then go direct me to a driver’s car, okay?