Ekona

As a fellow Lotus fan, I know exactly where you're coming from. And which is why you need to go buy yourself an MR2. Pick an early one up for £1200-£1500, strip everything out of it, put a decent seat in it with a pair of harnesses and you're done. It will give you 80% of the Lotus for 20% of the cost, and be considerably more reliable. For cheap MR fun, there's really no better place to look. You can easily disconnect the ABS and power steering too, if you want it to be even more Lotus-lite. Plus, performance bits are a lot cheaper too...

Some of the best drives I've ever had have been on Xmas day. One year I took the VXR on a stupid long drive and ended up on beach at night time, then there was last year when I managed to get from my house to the MIL in record time by discovering the A12 after Ipswich is a really fun road when it's empty... One year, I'll sack off the Xmas nonsense altogether and grab a hotel in the Lake District, then just spend the day hooning. Can't think of anything better tbh.

It's just another day. Get in the car, go for a blat on the emptiest roads you'll ever drive, come home and stick a game on, job done.

That's a really, really old tyre! Pilot Sport 1s haven't been produced in years.

I don't think there's much in it with any of the options available around that price point: It wouldn't surprise me at all if they were all made in the same factory. But yes, I agree that the HSDs shouldn't be written off either.

Not convinced I can sell the missus on that one

They might well be replacing the hubs a little more often, but they're probably comfortable using them from a safety POV. After all, you wouldn't want something to sheer off as you initiate a slide at 100mph. Now I want to run our Impreza in full on rally spec too

I ran them on the MR2, I run them on the BMW, I've tried them on Zeds. They're quality units for the money, with a good damping range and you can spec your own spring rates. I'd buy them again.

Spot-on sir Yeah, the gen1 Bose is utter shite You can make it better by padding around the subwoofer if you pull it out of the footwell, but it's a fudge at best. My mate had Bose in his 997.1 and it was crap compared with my 997.2 non-Bose. get used to replacing the condensers on a yearly basis, or even better fit a set of mesh over the fronts to protect them.

It is around that cost though: Hartech aren't cheap because they're the best, and you can save cash by only repairing affected cylinders (although I'd definitely do the lot!) etc. Depends who you use and what you want done. But I do take your point that for some people it's not a risk they want to take, which is absolutely fair enough.

Having seen the size of the spacers some of the pro guys used to drift with at Trax/Japfest this year, I'm not sure I'd be worried. They were on spacers around 100mm at least on some cars!

I think you could still exclude it, but allow for the law to let you sue for damages (which you currently can anyway). That way you'll still prop up the no-win-no-fee solicitors, and affordability won't be a barrier to justice.

New as in the 718? Great car, but I couldn't live with that noise when a 981.1 is available that's 98% as good but with a more characterful engine. I think if I did my research and inspection, then followed sensible warming up & cooling down methods properly, I could quite happily enjoy an M96/97 engined car without worry. Never having been in that position though, I couldn't say for sure. What I do know is that any engine from an expensive car has the ability to give you big bills, and odd noises never get any less worrying

:(

Agreed! As long as it doesn't cover any personal injury claims at all, I think it would be an excellent idea.

We can't be friends any more. Sorry.

Posting here so it reminds me to have a read up later. In short though, I'd love to go to court if anyone dared to suggest my brakes which are now 20% better than OEM are less safe than stock.

Nonsense. How many times does this come up still?? You're totally insured, however you may well find the insurer will reduce your payout if you write the car off. MOT fail != unroadworthy. Do you have a crack in your windscreen? Or a chip over the size of a pound? Do you still drive your car? How about if your numberplate fell off, could you drive your car home? How about if the numberplate didn't have the supplier on, or a non-spec flag (like a Nissan logo)? Or if the spare tyre was completely bald? Exactly. It's bobbins of the highest bobbinity. Not having a pop at you fella, all of this said with a casual winky smile as you'll sit back and realise how daft the regs are.

What I'm saying is that there is no explicit law saying that fluffy dice are illegal. There is a section in the MOT that deals with obstructions to view, and that's why fluffy dice will fail an MOT, but that doesn't mean it's illegal for me to put them straight back on afterwards and carry on driving. Same for fixed buckets in a road car, steering wheels with no airbag, decats etc. Not illegal, but will fail an MOT. You will fail an MOT if the speedo isn't reading correctly, which may be caused by rolling radius issues, but that doesn't make running tyres >3% bigger illegal.

As I said, utter b*llocks. Nowhere in the MOT manual does it state that silly 3% rule, and even if it did it wouldn't make it illegal. It's not illegal for me to have fluffy dice in my car. It will fail an MOT. It is illegal to drive round without an MOT. That doesn't make fluffy dice illegal.

Personally, I wouldn't do it that way: You're then relying on the tape itself to hold the spoiler down, as the TS will only have a very tiny contact patch with the spoiler. Better than tape alone I agree, but the results of a spoiler coming off on the motorway are too scary to contemplate. A quick squizzle of TS under the spoiler will be infinitely better, as long as you don't go too mad with it then it's very unlikely to spunk out the sides and make a mess.

Curly Wurlys are the king of chocolate snacks. There is nothing finer, and to be awarded one is a very high achievement indeed.

Or to be more precise, ask them to quote which piece of legislation they're referring to. If such a piece exists, I'll send them a Curly Wurly.

Utter load of b*llocks.

85 Mustangs in one place, wow! I bet the local A&E were busy then