1*2’s can hide rust well due to plastic wings, but yeah many are getting grotty underneath. Luckily the two I’ve owned and the many I’ve driven/worked on all seem to have a perpetual gear selector leak which keeps the underside nicely rust proofed.
You’ll hear/read about the “dephaser” service on these, for good reason as they can cost you almost the value of the car if it hasn’t been done or is overdue. The last car I bought had no history of a dephaser job and it was priced to reflect that so I took a punt. A year or two later I got it done at a specialist and it really brought the car to life. I dunno if the timing was out or what previous to the belts job, but it gained loads of perceived power after it was done.
A Trophy might not be a bad shout for a decent track car really, some will rightfully say they’re too expensive to track - but in the grand scheme of things they’re still cheap cars, and due to them being trophies there’s a much higher chance of obtaining a pampered example.
Not enough of those left. Plenty of plain old 1x2s about. Plus the trophys are 3* the price. Be like buying a RGB exige to track instead of a normal one.
Cor this has turned into a post right up my street LOL
With your budget I might be tempted to go Megane, but in all honesty I wouldn’t, the experience you had with the Clio is not representative at all, they are not like that in real life if setup correctly.
You can buy a well built track Clio 1*2 for about £4k leaving you some change to make sure it is right and correctly setup by someone like Mark Fish.
A 1*2 on R888R on a hot day will never need a diff once the tyre are hot there is not enough torque to spin the inside wheel unless you are exceptionally ham fisted. A car on throttle bodies or boosted is a different matter, my turbo car will easily spin the inside wheel in 3rd gear corners!
Mine and Steve’s Clios don’t do bad against the Lotus cars when we have come to the Exige days, yes they are a bit underpowered against the high HP cars but on a wet track with everyone on R888 or similar they are hard to catch!
Now the MX-5, with this years Exige track day only open to 2 seater sports cars, me and Steve have bought MX5’s, he has always wanted one for a sunny convertible and my son wants to do track days, and really you can’t get much cheaper, but watch out they rot!
As for the taller driver, fitting in an MX5 can be an issue, we are going to try modifying the seats in the silver car to get the seating position lower and further back, it is as easy as stripping the seat out and shaving the foam.
If you are at Anglesey in May, come say hi and you can try out one of them, I suspect one will be on R888R and the other on a more normal road tyre which my son will mostly be driving, we are doing a big brake upgrade and coilovers on at least one of them as well
