Be Excellent To Each Other

£418 TPFT with 4 years no claims, garaged, no alarms or immobilsers.

Hmmm.

Shame I don't have £261 a month to have it.

Kwak ZX-10R... looks filth. Gotta be in the glassic green as per that piccy.

Tad too sporty for my tastes these days (I'd look a right berk on one), but I *do* fancy a nice new bike for next Spring/Summer. I don't think I'd go too overboard though; shit, even a humble middleweight like a Suzook SV650 would do me to be honest.

Yeah, I'm with you there, chap. Spend £15k on a boggo, secondhand Caterham Roadsport. It's all the third car most of us would ever need, myself included. Awesome little machine.

Do you want an ER5?

I've always found the Caterham horrifically ugly. I won't deny it's a fantastic little car, though. But I'd still take the Atom.

No ta mate.

I'm only toying with the idea; knowing me it'll all come to nought. If I do it at all, it'll be a new 'un with 0% etc.

Old Man Afterthought has a VStrom 650 which I've had a go on, and it's really rather spiffy. Doesn't do anything brilliantly, but does a lot well. Worth a look, maybe.

Fair do's mate; personally though I love the look of a Caterham in aubergene with a nice yellow stripe around the front nose cone. I'm biased as my kid bro' races 'em.

I love the Atom too, but to be fair, that's much more cash than a secondhand 'poverty spec' Caterham, which is of course slower, but still a gas to drive. The ultra-forgiving, novice friendly rear drive set up without too much poke is just irresistable on track, for someone like me. Who cares if you're being wasted by £100K GT3 RS Porsches?

If I had a Caterham, it'd have to be in British Racing Green with a yellow nose, I'd have to drive it to work, angrily resign from my job, hoon it home in the car, get gassed out and then awake trapped in some weird holiday resort in Wales.

With that in mind, I'd probably go for an Atom as well. Also, it must be said, the KTM X-bow is proper sex. It's a shame it hasn't been a success for them.

Also also, I got overtaken by a Lotus Evora on the commute home last night. This is the third time I've seen one in the wild (the first time was heading towards Oxford on the M40 and must've been a prototype since they were still months from going on sale). They're lovely, lovely cars. Oh, to be rich and be able to afford one of them!

Meh, the X-Bow is an amazing thing, but £45k though...? You'd have to be seriously minted to cough up that kind of money on what is basically just a toy (albeit a pretty awesome one).

Never seen an Evora in the metal, but can't say I'm over impressed with the looks. Plus, is anyone seriously going to spend £10k more on this than a Cayman S, bearing in mind that Car magazine found it was slower on track? OK I'm biased, but if it can't beat the (cheaper) Porker on track, it certainly isn't going to compare in all the other usual respects like quality, ergonomics, reliability, retained value etc.? Plus it has a Toyota Camry engine for heaven's sake.

To me, the Evora is an interesting car for motoring journos and the rest of us to pontificate about, but most of us would go for the Porsche with our own hard earned real money?

Good news: The lady fixed the 4 nasty screw holes in the dash and you'd literally not know they'd ever been there. Superb repair job.

Bad news: Despite VW telling me via email last week they'd cut and code a new key for me when I was in today, guess what they didn't have in stock!

Another 20 mile round trip. Grrrr!

I'd say that all four of those things are completely unrelated to track performance.
I'd type more but I've just had a fucking awesome idea.

You nick my computer game stuff and I'll cut you, you cunt!

Yeah, I didn't put that very well lol. What I meant was, you'd expect the focused Evora to at least outshine the opposition on track; this would compensate for the fact that it's held together with glue, and all the normal car stuff that it probably doesn't do as well. I mean, you don't buy an Elise for its stunning interior quality and daily driver potential.



That sounds interesting, a cunning plan?

The Elise has a Toyota Celica engine, what's your point?

Personally, I'd want something with a good deal more pedigree for my fifty grand plus than a Jap repmobile's engine, although I appreciate that's not necessarily a priority for everyone.

EDIT: sorry I meant the Evora of course, not the Elise, which is a much cheaper car.

What? Doen't the Elise use the Rover K-series engine?

Edit -- aha, Wikipedia says later S2s were a Toyota 1.8 VVVT engine. I stand corrected.

The V6 engine in the Camry/Evora (and countless other Toyota and Lexus models) is probably one of the best engines Toyota ever made.

The Evora has the same 3.5L Toyota engine that's in the Previa and Camry.

The Elise S1 did, the S2 uses the 1ZZ-FE engine used in the MR2 Roadster and 7th generation Celica 140, or the 2ZZ-GE engine used in the 7th generation Celica 190.

I believe some still use the K-series engine, but most moved to Toyota.

It used to Doc (this was always its main weakness IMO), but I believe it now uses a supercharged Toyota lump, which I've no doubt is better all round.

Ta for the correction, Cavey and Gaz.

It may well be Gazchap. I am not saying 'it's a shit engine'; I have no idea whether it's good, bad or indifferent, I'm quite prepared to take your wordd for it though. No doubt it's utterly reliable, that's a given.

No, what I am saying though, is that for me personally, an off the shelf Toyota engine (as used in the likes of the Camry - Toyota's Granada if you will), doesn't cut it from purely a pedigree POV, outright snobbery if you like. I'll admit that for £55k, I want something special. The £44k Cayman S has a beautiful flat six Porsche engine, the Audi TT RS has a bespoke five pot and the BMW M3 has a fantastic V8. This engine doesn't cut it in this specific (subjective) context, in my view. And subjectivity counts when we're talking something as indulgent as an expensive sports car; even TVR used to design and build their own engines.

Fair enough Different strokes for different folks, I guess. For £55K I'd want something that was utterly reliable

Actually, the Rover K-series was generally considered a better fit for the Elise by many than the Toyota engine they replaced it with in the 111R - though both engines have issues. To be fair, the K-series is the worst with it's virtual guarantee of developing a head gasket failure at some point in it's life, but the Toyota is known to have cavitation issues. I gather you have to be ragging it pretty hard round some very sharp bends for that to happen though.

As for the Evora, it is Lotus's answer to the Cayman S certainly, but by maintaining the Lotus ethos of performance through light weight. Also, it's a mid-engined car, not rear-engined, so the engine can't be huge. The Toyota V6 they've shoved in is meant to be a surprisingly good fit. Not that I generally listen too much to what Clarkson thinks, but he certainly was gushing over the Evora in his Top Gear review.

I'd want one over a Porsche. I see three or four Caymans every day on my commute. I've seen three Evoras ever. And they look gorgeous in the flesh/metal.

Fair do's mate, each to his own.

The Cayman is also mid engined btw (3.4 litre flat six in the case of the S) and tips the scales at around 1350kg I think.

Shhhh! That's my next move old chap, that'll land the killer blow!

Which one? The 1ZZ or the 2ZZ? The early 1ZZs in the Celica and MR2 Roadsters had terrible problems with excessive oil consumption caused by the cams wearing out and letting more oil through than necessary. This was fixed somewhere around late 2002/early 2003, and the 2ZZ has no problems reported other than dodgy lift bolts in the early versions of the engine.

Heh... I've never driven either (Evora and Cayman) and both are (possibly permanently) well out of my price league. So I dunno. They all have four wheels and look nice though.

Besides, I base all my badge snobbery on videogames and Porsche are in hardly any. They practically don't exist as far as I can tell.

Forza 3 has Porsches. You should get a 360.

I HAVE ONE NOW GODDAMMIT!

Besides, I said 'hardly any'. Lotus are in more videogames than I can wave a large feather duster at.

You keep using this dimlie. I do not think it means what you think it means.

It's getting late have you seen my mates
Ma tell me when the boys get here
It's seven o'clock and I want to rock
Want to get a belly full of beer
My old man's drunker than a barrel full of monkeys
And my old lady she don't care
My sister looks cute in her braces and boots
A handful of grease in her hair

Don't give us none of your aggravation
We had it with your discipline
Saturday night's alright for fighting
Get a little action in

Get about as oiled as a diesel train
Gonna set this dance alight
'Cause Saturday night's the night I like
Saturday night's alright, alright, alright
Well they're packed pretty tight in here tonight
I'm looking for a dolly who'll see me right
I may use a little muscle to get what I need
I may sink a little drink and shout out "She's with me!"
A couple of the sound that I really like
Are the sounds of a switchblade and a motorbike
I'm a juvenile product of the working class
Whose best friend floats in the bottom of a glass

Don't give us none of your aggravation
We had it with your discipline
Saturday night's alright for fighting
Get a little action in
\

http://www.fullonrobotchubby.co.uk/bang/

I got bored looking up prices, but I'll finish it in due course.

Brilliant!

I reckon you should submit to TG mate, that's a fantastic illustration of a car's real price/performance. I reckon a league table would be awesome.

If anyone wants to help, you can look up the prices of the missing cars and put on this list

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key= ... 5WHc&hl=en

I've been away. I didn't know so good.

Yeah. I caved and bought a 360. I have to have 3 baths a day now to remove the stench of defeat BUT IT WON'T COME OFF!

No... wait... no, apprentely the stench is 'BO'. Probably the same thing though.

Aw, someone's already helping! Thanks, mystery editor!

The trick is to change the water each bath.

Don't forget the enigma wrapper.

Done another 17 for you - some of those are going to be tricky to find prices for... was the M400 even put into production?

Mr Grim.. I don't think your "sort by value" column works.

I'm hopelessly shit at maths, but I think the formula isn't right. You're dividing the cost of the car by the number of seconds to get round the lap... which is fair enough for a 'cost per second' value... but this means the longer a car takes to get round the track, the better value it is. By that token, a skateboard must represent unbeatable value when it comes to wheeled transportation.

If you don't want to waste the water it use it as stock.

Don't worry, the 360 will be obsolete the moment I get one. You won't have long......

Heh. Caterham and Veyron at the same time. Caterham at one millionth the price.

Plus, the Caterham's got soul. The Veyron has just got computers and engineering and shit.

Caterham's are shit and driven by wankers. I much prefer Morgans.

They are the gentleman's conveyance, yes.

They're different things generally though, Caterhams are mostly owned by people who like to race them or at least go on track days or even just think that they're Nigel Mansell. Morgans are for, I dunno, poncing around with a wicker basket on the back pretending to be Toad of Toad Hall or Bergerac or some shit?