OMG, just seen this!

http://www.toyota.co.uk/cgi-bin/toyota/ ... rs&sr=Mall

I LOVED the Celica but they discontinued it a while back and Toyota haven't done any "sports" cars since then.

They even dropped the "sports" name from their car ranges (i.e. Toyota Yaris T-Sport - my current car - no longer exists).

This looks very nice though!

GT-86....no

Subaru BRZ (When they fit a turbo on it) yes (The cars are pretty much the same bar branding)
http://www.torquenews.com/1084/next-sub ... -developed

That said there are rumours they are going to do a new Supra soon

I have no idea what I want as my next car.

I've never owned a car

Looking at prices and loan payments and stuff I'm thinking of possibly going down the contract hire route.

Looks a lot better than buying.

Be weary of PCP. I went down this route but wished I'd just taken out a loan as it worked out more expensive - something like £3-4k more than if I'd just taken out a personal loan. I originally went down this route as I planned to change cars every three years but I fell in love with mine and decided I wanted to keep it.

I think I'd like an Austin A35 or Morris 1000 for my next car.

Will keep an eye out.

As an example though.

The GT86 on a loan (not calculating part ex etc...) works out at something like £600 a month at 12% interest (guessed) and 60 monthly payments.

And for year 3, 4 and 5 there is MOT on top and Road tax every year.

Through lingscars.com (first place I looked) the same car is £450 a month for 3 years.

No MOT, Road tax for first year is included.

OK, you don't own the car at the end but it's a hell of a lot cheaper.

I can picture you in either one of those cars. You should head up to the Enfield Pageant one year. You'd love it!

Enfield Pageant 2012

Coo!

Best Beloved has not disapproved. I think we'll be making the effort.

Strangely enough, as I own a celica currently, I am seriously considering getting a GT-86 when they hit the shops in a few months. My current celica is now 11 years old and, while mechanically still pretty sound, is probably just about to start having things go Very Expensively Wrong with it.

Obv there is also the BRZ. But Subaru will charge you 3-4K more simply for the privilege of availing yourself of their staggeringly incompetent and generally surly dealer network, so screw em. And fitting a turbo on a BRZ/GT-86 is, by all accounts, Missing The Point. It's not about horsepower or torques, it's about handling. Taking what (according to all the reviews) is apparently an almost perfectly handling car and fitting a turbo on it so it torque-steers as soon as the turbo kicks in hardly seems like an improvement to me. if Scooby can get a few more HP out of the engine fair enough but I buy a car to drive it, not to quote numbers at people at parties who are secretly wishing I'd go and talk to someone else.

As far as I've heard Foggy, say yes to the leather/alcantara seats, no to the satnav unless you really want it and the 'standard price' red is apparently OK so unless you really want another colour don't pay for that.


Jon

Nice, thanks!

I may have to book in for a test drive

From the options I read I was thinking of the red exterior with black leather (red stitching) interior and black panels. The Toyota Touch system comes as standard but the satnav is extra AFAIK. Wouldn't need the satnav anyway

+1. Metallic paint is hard to blend in properly if repaired. Pearlescent will mean respray of the panel affected. The satnav could probably be bought cheaper elsewhere (I bought my one for £700 from Germany when VW wanted £2000 for it).

The seats look like leather bolsters and alcantara middles. The Golf GTI Pirelli has something similar which I quite like. The downside is that the leather bolster could crease if you're not careful getting in/out of the car. Not an issue if you plan not to keep it.

As for automatic/manual, I'd go for a test drive in one. Automatics used to be horrendous until VW developed the DSG system and has since been copied by others.

EDIT: Just noticed that the automatic is slower and has a lower top speed, so may not be as enjoyable to drive as a manual.

It's more the case that as an option it's something like 700 quid, whereas the top of the range TomTom is only about 250 quid. Unless you really can't deal with an 'add on' sat nav, 500 quid extra is a lot to pay...


Indeed so, that is the arrangement. To be honest, I rather wish they'd do some other colours than black and black with red piping. I rather like red cars with natural leader interiors...


Also, automatic is considerably expensive option. Although strangely they quote it as having slightly better fuel economy, which I don't think is the way things normally turn out.

They do red leather and red alcantara.