The best sports car for under £10k

Pondrew said:
No matter how clever manufacturers and engineers are, you can't disguise weight on a big lump of metal hurtling along bendy roads. Physics says this is so. The weight will always make itself known in one form or another.
If a car is so clever that it can make you not notice the weight, it isn't going to be 'fun' to drive. Actually, no, it is physically impossible for a car to not show it's weight at one time or another.
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Some interesting points.

Pretty sure Porsche engineers have proven this to not be the case with the 911 with its engine slung out the back. They've more or less defied physics for a while now. That most definitely is a sports car and hasn't been classed as lightweight for a very long time.
 
Thing is where does the weight argument finish? Normal cars are struggling to sit under 2000kg now.

To me 14-1500kg is light and there is nothing today you can buy that offers the daily drivability, weekend hooning and track possibility at the cost that the Z4 does.

Just a complete waste of time, 20 years ago you could make that argument but maybe certain people havent moved on into what is available today and accept how good this proposition is.

A 992 starts at about 1550kg and its very easy to get them up to 1800+kg with basic options. The Boxster GTS is 1450kg without options and you cant buy one now. An electric boxster isnt going to touch that sort of weight.

911s are engineered well but they might as well be defined mid-engined rather than engine out back.

Oh and ye, you need 70+k for a boxster 4.0 GTS and the 992 is more like 100k.

Moving forward there isnt much available.

If the Z4 is deemed niche and now BMW are ending production, anything super focused is even more niche.

My Model Y is 2500kgs, the weight is really low down handles great. 7 seats and much quicker than my Z4M. Very different but at the same time more usable all the family and its still fun to boot down a B road.

Is it as much fun, no but I cant take 2 kids the wife, 2 dogs and luggage in the M. Even with that lot the Y is probably still quicker 🫠 The world we live in.
 
@Pondrew, people often confuse nimbleness with being lightweight, but that’s not really the whole story. Nimbleness is really about geometry—wheelbase, track width, and center of gravity (C of G). Think of it this way: a car with a long wheelbase and a narrow track feels rock-solid in a straight line, but it’s slow to change direction. Conversely, a short wheelbase paired with a wide track makes a car feel agile and quick to respond, though at the cost of high-speed stability. Now add C of G into the mix, that same long-wheelbase, narrow-track car has a high C of G, it’ll stay stable when going straight, but will get a little scary under braking or cornering, because the higher mass shifts more aggressively. Drop the C of G closer to the road, and suddenly the car feels planted during cornering. Why? Because the lateral acceleration during cornering creates weight transfer, and the higher the C of G, the bigger the leverage trying to unload the inside wheels, lower it, and you minimise the effect.
 
Pondrew said:
I did say I was bored of this subject, but........

Yeah, blah blah. C of G is one thing but if you throw a 2,000kg lump of metal around a bend at x MPH it will behave very differently to a 600kg lump of metal, no matter where the C of G is. Inertia and momentum come into play, and are directly effected by weight (sorry..mass if we're being all scientific).

Heavy cars don't handle well, when compared to lighter cars. It's just the laws of physics. And because the weight (sorry...mass) needs more 'ooomph' (technical term) to throw it along at the same rate as a lighter car, the engines are generally bigger and heavier which compounds the issues. Especially as the engine is normally hanging out of the front of the car, over the front wheels.

And a 'sportscar' should be fun, which means nimble (aka handles well) when throwing it around a bend. A heavy car can't be nimble. It just can't.

I'm now out, as this is getting too complicated for me!
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Don't leave now it's just getting fun :rofl:

For me it's simple the E86 profile reminds me of the cars I used to draw when I was a kid - I say profile because at that age I didn't have the ability to complete a 3D render.

Now don't get me wrong I still can't complete a 3D render but personally I don't think there is a better looking car out there especially not at a comparative price point. When I study the cars that I think look better I end up resolving myself to the fact that they are just trying to hard with unnecessary styling accents and over engineered interiors.

As for fun when I bought the Z4MC back in 2018 I'd never driven anything like it and always looked forward to getting back in the driving seat for the next episode in the drama of ownership. I was travelling more for work at the time and frequently used the car to travel from Sheffield to Scotland because I loved driving it so much. I used to comment to colleagues that it felt like you plugged yourself in to the car and there was no way you were ever going to drift off to sleep on a long drive - what I didn't tell them was that the main reason for this was if you stopped concentrating on the road for a split second it felt like the car was going to throw you off the road in to a ditch. But that car beyond a suitable UK road speed was like nothing else I'd ever driven - it felt like being sat on dart that was only ever going to hit the target to which it had been intentionally thrown.

More recently I've drifted in to E89 ownership and as much as I love the E89 and the driving pleasure it provides I'll always remember fondly my days in the Z4MC. Maybe I should look at getting another one but as I'm sure my wife would remind me it's a very selfish motor car to own - but therein lies the appeal ;)
 
Fady said:
That's a racing car!
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What's the difference? Racing is motorsport, so.... a racing car is a sportscar, isn't it?

When you really think about it, aren't racing cars the only sports cars? Having a nice time driving a Lotus around country lanes with a baseball cap on isn't really a sport, is it? For it to be a sport, you need rules and results. You need competition.
 
tiglon said:
What's the difference? Racing is motorsport, so.... a racing car is a sportscar, isn't it?

When you really think about it, aren't racing cars the only sports cars? Having a nice time driving a Lotus around country lanes with a baseball cap on isn't really a sport, is it? For it to be a sport, you need rules and results. You need competition.
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No - racing cars are not necessarily sports cars. You can race virtually anything, e.g. trucks. 2 CVs will have their own classification and likely only really race against other 2CVs and/or vehicles with the same sort of power output, i.e. not Ferraris!

It's blindingly obvious that everyone has their own definition of what a sportscar is. Back in the day when I was a serious reader of motor related publications EVO, Autocar, Top Gear etc. I don't believe any variant of Z4 has ever featured highly on a list of so called sports cars or received substantial praise from any notable car journalists for the way it handles or other such key criteria. These are people who test cars for their livelihood and have therefore driven everything under the sun.
 
Here's a link to an Evo article where they described the Z4M as a "serious contender in the £40,000 sports car sector".

www.evo.co.uk

BMW Z4 M v Boxster S v TVR Tuscan v Alpina: M Power Strikes Back | Evo

BMW's new Z4 M Roadster takes on the Porsche Boxster S, TVR Tuscan and Alpina Roadster S
www.evo.co.uk www.evo.co.uk

This was their conclusion.

"The M Roadster will win friends as much for not being a Porsche as for its visceral appeal, vivid character and much-improved dynamics. It could look more distinctive, and it doesn't set a new benchmark for sports car dynamics (that accolade still belongs to the Boxster), but it's a bold, ballsy car that exhilarates and challenges in a way the oh-so-accomplished Porsche can't match. In a magazine that lives for the thrill of driving, that's enough to give it the nod by the narrowest of margins."

So I'll have to disagree with you!
 
Fady said:
It's blindingly obvious that everyone has their own definition of what a sportscar is.
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This is exactly the whole point. It doesn't matter what we want to call them, as everyone has their own criteria.
When cars started getting heavy and bigger, the term 'grand tourer' started to replace the term 'sportscar' for a given type of car, as they became too cumbersome to be classed (in the old way) of being a sportscar.

If the 'official' term for a sportscar is any car that is low and has two seats, then so be it. Just not my criteria.

I wonder if the word 'sportycar' would be more apt now that every car has put on a few pounds? :)
 
Pondrew said:
This is exactly the whole point. It doesn't matter what we want to call them, as everyone has their own criteria.
When cars started getting heavy and bigger, the term 'grand tourer' started to replace the term 'sportscar' for a given type of car, as they became too cumbersome to be classed (in the old way) of being a sportscar.

If the 'official' term for a sportscar is any car that is low and has two seats, then so be it. Just not my criteria.

I wonder if the word 'sportycar' would be more apt now that every car has put on a few pounds? :)
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Reminds me of when we were kids and a group of us less fortunates wanted a chopper - being realistic we knew the ownership experience was never going to happen for us due to economic constraints (our families were skint).

But our criteria was simple - big wheel on the back small wheel on the front. So we made it happen and for an all to brief a period of time we owned a chopper bicycle.

The ownership experience ended abruptly when one of the lads pulled a wheelie on our home made creation going down the hill which was our road and the front wheel flew off.

He lost his two front teeth and the rest of us lost our dream of riding a chopper.

Moral of the story is if it looks like a sportscar, smells like a sportscar and drives like a sportscar it's probably a Z4.
 
Gwest44 said:
Moral of the story is if it looks like a sportscar, smells like a sportscar and drives like a sportscar it's probably a Z4.
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I like that analogy.

I also was never bought a Raleigh Chopper, even though all my peers (who lived on the Council estate) had them. My dad found a 'chopper-esque' at the local tip and bought it home and made me a 'faux chopper'. It was great, had a proper size front wheel, but still not a Chopper.

Funny thing is my peers loved it, as it was different to theirs, so I actually spent quite a lot of my childhood riding other people's bikes*.

*bikes = choppers. It reads very wrong.
 
Roberltd2 said:
Why, in the first sentence did he have to splash a swear word all over us?
That kind of shock value seems a bit dated now.
Like Pondrew, I found the ear ring a bit distracting.
But I suppose all these things would be ironed out in professional TV, along with using reflectors when shooting against the sun.
He reminded me a bit of Richard E. Grant in Withnail & I.
If he'd have "rocked up" in Penrith and caused a bit of chaos in a tea room, it might have made a more interesting video i.m.h.o. :).
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Miss Blenehassitt, telephone the police.
 
Fady said:
No - racing cars are not necessarily sports cars. You can race virtually anything, e.g. trucks. 2 CVs will have their own classification and likely only really race against other 2CVs and/or vehicles with the same sort of power output, i.e. not Ferraris!

It's blindingly obvious that everyone has their own definition of what a sportscar is. Back in the day when I was a serious reader of motor related publications EVO, Autocar, Top Gear etc. I don't believe any variant of Z4 has ever featured highly on a list of so called sports cars or received substantial praise from any notable car journalists for the way it handles or other such key criteria. These are people who test cars for their livelihood and have therefore driven everything under the sun.
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They literally are. Racing is motorsport. Racing cars take part in motorsport. They are cars that take part in sport. They are sports cars.

It might not fit your personal preference, but it's what the words mean.

The whole point of language is that a word has a specific meaning, if we all start claiming to have our own different definition for the same word, then the word no longer has any meaning whatsoever. Which is kind of where we are with sports cars - it means something different to different people so it has now become utterly meaningless.
 
Pondrew said:
I did say I was bored of this subject, but........

Yeah, blah blah. C of G is one thing but if you throw a 2,000kg lump of metal around a bend at x MPH it will behave very differently to a 600kg lump of metal, no matter where the C of G is. Inertia and momentum come into play, and are directly effected by weight (sorry..mass if we're being all scientific).

Heavy cars don't handle well, when compared to lighter cars. It's just the laws of physics. And because the weight (sorry...mass) needs more 'ooomph' (technical term) to throw it along at the same rate as a lighter car, the engines are generally bigger and heavier which compounds the issues. Especially as the engine is normally hanging out of the front of the car, over the front wheels.

And a 'sportscar' should be fun, which means nimble (aka handles well) when throwing it around a bend. A heavy car can't be nimble. It just can't.

I'm now out, as this is getting too complicated for me!
Click to expand...
sars said:
@Pondrew, people often confuse nimbleness with being lightweight, but that’s not really the whole story. Nimbleness is really about geometry—wheelbase, track width, and center of gravity (C of G). Think of it this way: a car with a long wheelbase and a narrow track feels rock-solid in a straight line, but it’s slow to change direction. Conversely, a short wheelbase paired with a wide track makes a car feel agile and quick to respond, though at the cost of high-speed stability. Now add C of G into the mix, that same long-wheelbase, narrow-track car has a high C of G, it’ll stay stable when going straight, but will get a little scary under braking or cornering, because the higher mass shifts more aggressively. Drop the C of G closer to the road, and suddenly the car feels planted during cornering. Why? Because the lateral acceleration during cornering creates weight transfer, and the higher the C of G, the bigger the leverage trying to unload the inside wheels, lower it, and you minimise the effect.
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I agree that handling characteristics, how driving a car makes you feel, and aesthetics are all key components of what defines a sports car, but the boundaries are now blurred by electric cars.
Handling is governed in part by the car's mass and its distribution, as well as the dimensions of the vehicle including its track and wheelbase, and the suspension set up. When compared with my Exige, my wife's Taycan is 120cm longer and 25cm wider and taller; the wheelbase is 60cm longer and the wheel track 20cm wider; it's 2.5x the mass, yet the handling is just as sharp and nimble. It's stable at high speed in a straight line but also readily changes direction - I can take corners without slowing down that would make me nervous in my Lotus. The centre of mass is lower than the wheel centres and in the middle of the floor of the car. The weight distribution of my Lotus is 60% rear-biased and the centre of mass is around 45cm above the ground with a kinematic roll centre 3cm above the ground. The Lotus has double wishbones front and rear, the Porsche has double wishbones at the front and multilink rear combined with active suspension.
Driving my Exige is raw and visceral at all times, but it is at the extreme end of the sportscar spectrum. The Taycan can be a silent, high speed luxury mile-muncher or transform into a stimulating car with a mind-blowing ability to accelerate, brake and change direction without body roll or loss of stability. There is fantastic feedback through the wheel and the car is easy to place in bends. It lacks the olfactory feedback of a car driven hard, and doesn't reward such driving with ever more dramatic sounds, but it also doesn't deafen me or roast me on a hot day. In most ways, it is far from lacking excitement.
If aesthetics are considered, the aspect ratios of both cars are near identical in terms of ratios of height to width, height to length and width to length. The Exige is a mini Group C racer; the Taycan is a wide, low-slung coupe.
However, whilst the Exige is a undoubtedly a sportscar, most would struggle to use that word to describe the Taycan.
 
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