Thought I would do a quick introduction before I dig straight in to asking my questions The names Binnsy and I come from Nottingham, I've always been into my cars and now I'm considering an FRP. I'm 22 and started driving on my 18th birthday, in a P reg corsa with the almighty 1.2i 45bhp engine. 0-60 in 17.5 seconds was certainly an experience I will never forget! And as you can see from the below pics it even looked fast....... *ahem*
Moving swiftly on, after putting up with the Corsa for a good 2 years I saw a Yaris T-sport and instantly fell in love with the thing, yes I know its a girls car, but it was fun to drive, cheap to run and had a decent amount of poke (0-60 in 8.5 seconds was certainly a lot more entertraining ). It started in my hands like the below, at this point it had a Fujitsubo Power getter exhaust fitted, tinted rear windows, and a K&N induction kit located behind the passenger fog light.
By the time I was done with it I had had the wheels refurbished and powerdcoated matte black, and the car loaded 38/35mm on Tein springs which completley transformed the handling.
It may have been a bit silly but I loved it, it was loud, stiff, and stupidly good fun. Unfortunately I had it less than a year before I pulled out in front of a motorbike and both vehicles were written off It was my first crash in my 3.5 years of driving and royally shook me up. Luckily both myself and the guy were fine. I drove around in a god awful 08 plate 1.4 8v Grande Punto for a couple of weeks after that which felt like it couldnt pull the skin of a rice pudding. Before buying my current car. A 2.2 Vauxhall Astra Coupe.
Looking back, it wasnt the best of choices for me, its relatively quick with a 144bhp engine, gets to 60 quicker than my Yaris (just) and generally has much more pulling power across the board thanks to the much bigger engine. Unfortunately its boring as sin. It can actually take corners at a decent speed, probably down to the lotus influence over the suspension, but Vauxhall managed to waste all that effort with the god-awful totally detached power steering. I still think its an alright looking car but I'm bored of it and fancy a change.
Now, I'll be totally honest, the Ford Racing Puma isn't the only car I'm considering by a long way, the list also includes MX-5s, MR-2's, Clio 182's, Civic Type-R's, Fiesta ST's, Twingo 133's, basically any car that you would consider fun in the <£7000 price range. However, I think slowly the FRP is working its way to the top of my list. Its one of the cheapest to insure as far as I can tell (thought it just appears as a 1.7 puma on confused, have any of you had to inform them seperately?) it seems to have respectable running costs and i dont think it will suffer from the problem of having too much power to be fun without breaking the law (like just about any 200+ bhp newer car tends to suffer from now imho).
The one I have found seems to be in good shape and isn't too far away, I was wondering if it used to belong to anyone on here or if any of you know its history? Its number 023, has 9 service stamps in the book, generally seems well looked after. Is there anything in paticular I should be keeping an eye out for if I go to view this?
http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/ ... 9369064038
Thanks all