Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Sports car, small car

Granted!It won't be a daily driver that's for certain!I had one for five years and except for a few ghost electrical issues it was a great car.It was a lot of fun on tight country roads.One of my neighbors was a Fiat mechanic for many years so I learned how to work on it from him.

It is one of the best handling cars you can buy.

I would have bought one but the top edge of the windshield is level with my eyes.

I saw a Cayman in person today at Lowes of all places. I will really have to go sit in one and see if I can fit. I'm starting to have my doubts however.

Going to San Antonio on business in two weeks and I assume they will probably have more cars on the lot to look at so I'll probalby spend a little time doing that while I'm there.

The Cayman has a dialed back engine to make it a mid level priced (for Porsche anyways) model as to not hurt the 911 sales.

Drove a Cayman today. It's a really nice car but as I suspected I didn't fit well.

Nothing comes close to the performance of the Nissan GT-R. You can find them used in your price range. The GT-R is unreal.

The new Porsche that I had was a breakdown nightmare.

It suffered a complete engine breakdown and was in the Porsche dealers garage for months waiting for some part.

Then when it finally got running the shift lever came out of the floor. The 1966 Porsche 912's shift lever mounts in the usual place off the floor ahead of the front seats. It has a ball at it's end that rotates through the gears and pulls on cables to the transmission. The bracket that the ball rotates in has a hole in it's top for the shift lever and is attached to a bracket bolted to the floor. The part the shift lever operating ball rotates in wore out and shift lever popped out of it and the transmission was jammed.

I brought the assembly, which was easy to remove, to the dealer and asked for a replacement. Weeks went by with no part and therefore no car! It was the only car that I had.

My late dad made a new part on his lathe and welded it to the bracket and it worked right off. I still have that part here in my garage. A memory of my dad's ability and Porsche's breakdown.



During the long breakdown I bought an old Chevy Impala 6 for low price. The car had a huge trunk and a roof rack was good for carrying long things. I was working on building an addition on the camp. The Impala was so useful. The Porsche was a painful mess.

I have owned a couple of newer Corvettes since then. Great cars.

For less money and excellent performance get a Subaru WRX STI. You even get FOUR doors instead of just two!

Well, seeing as how you brought up the Z, and as no one else has mentioned this option: Infiniti G37S Coupe with the 6MT.

Reliable. Good looking. Decent performance, as in faster than a stock STI in a straight line. Ride is comfortable for long hauls. Base is under $40K. Sporty, though not a sports car. Won't take it in the rear (as much) as you will with the Subies and the Evo when it comes to insurance.

If you need more go-fast, there's the Stillen supercharger. You could make one heck of a firebreathing monster for $60K

As soon as the wife's Highlander is paid off (January) we're going to pick up a used G37S Sedan.

Scott

Porsche Boxter or Cayman.

Read further up the page....unless someone can shrink me 3-4" it's not going to work.

Nathan have you set in one of the Nissan Z cars?

IIRC they were quite a bit more comfortable than the Porsches, but I'm only 6'1" so may fit all of them easier than you do.

my time was limited in the Z, used to date my accountants g'friend long time ago, he'd bought the car for her. Both were a fun ride.


Ahhh the ignorance of youth! How stupid do you have to be to date your accountant's g'friend?

I'll be curious to see what you get. I'm doing work to my old 944 and it's put away for winter currently.

I don't like to mechanic so I think when I get the work finished on it I will sell it and see about getting something of a more recent vintage to drive.

I have a friend 6'4" and he has a Porsche. I guess it depends on your version of comfort. I have driven the CTS-V and if you want decent space and still haul butt and corner on a rail for $60k, that might be your ticket.

There you go....

My insurance agent had one of the late model Nissan Z cars and really liked it. He is probably 6'3" or so and never mentioned it being too small. Isn't the Infiniti Coupe a bit longer, with a bit more room?

Thru the years I have owned and driven extensively most of the well known muscle and sports cars. Muscle cars included the original Pyymouth Fury and a Dodge challenger Hemi. Sports cars included,several Porsche's,Jags , a Lotus Elite Coupe,BMW 6 series and on and on. I just returned from a 6000 mile cross country journey. It was in my 2006 Mustang Fastback. This has all the options,leather seats,full instruments,traction control,suspension options,strut tower brace,and on and on. Driving is impeccable, comfort is excellant,and reliability is above par.This will be the last year for this body style they are going to screw it up next year. If I did not have this car I would probably have one of the stretched Mini Coopers (I had one of the originals many years ago). I have found over the years that while sports cars are neat to look at,they are no more fun to drive than a big fine handling car and don't have nearly the space for even bring groceries home from the supermarket and are generally more expensive to maintain. My last sports car was a Nissan 340ZX. It did,at least , have decent trunk space.

I am afraid your size and long travel is going to limit the true sports car and move you more toward a sporty sedan. With that in mind, I'd look at one of the lexus or infinity models as well as maybe a Nissan Maxima or Z are a 1/2 way compromize. The Lexus GS 450h is a sweet ride with plenty of sport and comfort.

For a lower budget car, I kinda like the crosstour from Honda: a v-6 in an accord size car will fly and should work for longer trips.

Mercedes AMG C63 is also a sweet ride.
You could always get a 2 door Toyota Tundra with a 5.7L engine with a Supercharger that will give you 520+ HP. Not many cars on the street can hang with a truck that will run 120+ mph in the 1/4 mile.

I'm thinking he doesn't want to mortgage his life away or sell major body parts...

Good idea though! They've always been a favorite of mine.

Ed

Here's my 60th birthday present. You can get the M Series if you really want to go fast.
I've had more compliments on this car than any I've ever owned, from young kids to people my age, women really like it, my wife is just amazed at what they say.