My son wants to do more track days, he’s 6ft 4 and growing and does not fit an Exige or Elise. He has been driving my a Caterham but has to sit like a pen knife. I’m going to look at a bag seat for him but even then his head may be too close to the roll cage. We would also like a car that we can drive to the track and not worry when he crashes it (he pushes it, he will). As he is a young driver, with an old dad, we don’t want an m3 or something very fast yet.
I’m thinking of a Gt86 to teach him to pedal properly. Mx5 is another option but I have been rude about them for years. Cheap boxster or Cayman is also possible but they are not reliable. I’m leaning towards the gt86 as it’s not too fast, cheap and rwd, he fits as well (just). Has anyone got any experience of the gt86 on track. I’ve only met them going slowly on the track. I hear they have poor engine reliability. Maybe a 325 or even 320 is a good safe starter?
I drove Minis, the old sort for years, Golf Gtis and the usual suspects. For normal road use I think fwd is much more sensible and a better packaging option. I just think that RWD is more fun on track because you have to be more careful and controlled, especially in the wet. I did try a BMW Mini at a Rally School and hated it, lots of understeer.
That’s it really, I’d probably be faster/better/safer in a FWD, but I like underpowered RWD on track. Hence my choices.
Did some fitting for size today. Too tall for an Mx-5 with the hood up, even without a crash helmet. Fits in a gt86 with about 5mm to spare. Plenty of room in Cayman but the woes of the 3.4 engine put me off.
if rwd is required the GT86 on normal rubber would be hard to beat, just enough grip and power to be having fun but not too fast, if not a Clio for fwd is hard to beat, you can pick up well setup track cars for very little cash, the only worry is when the come over a little bit french and do odd things like refuse to start for a day then never do it again…
Older ones, which I can afford to have trashed on track, have a reputation for the IMS bearing and cylinder liners failing. It’s a 10k engine fix, probably 2/3 the car value. There are a few with the Hartek rebuild which a supposed to be good. New liners, skimmed heads and level deck. Bit like fixing a k series but 20x the price.
