Summer Sport Cars for Every Budget – 2018

Summer Recommendations for Every Budget - 2018 Edition

I original wrote a short blog on summer recommendation for different budgets six years ago (the original blog is attached below). Recently I was asked by a group in Australia for an update. As I am now based on the west side of the Atlantic, the budgets are now in US $ and I have given a few American cars more consideration. I have also extended the time frame to go back to 1970.

The 2018 list, starting with the more modest budgets is:

$15k-25k range: Porsche 911 (996), Maserati GranSport. It’s hard to go wrong recommending a Porsche. In terms of bargains these days, the Porsche 911 (996) offers tremendous performance and value. 996s have taken the place of the 993s at the bottom of the 911 price ladder currently but that doesn’t mean they aren’t still terrific driver’s cars. In this price range you can find a huge selection of 996s. The Maserati GranSport is another car that had a spot in our garage about a decade ago. In sport mode, the GranSport comes alive and responds well to being pushed. The Ferrari supplied V8 that sits in the nose is wonderful to hear sing and provides plenty of grunt. Of the early 21stcentury Maseratis, the GranSport is the best of the breed.

$25-50k range: Jaguar F-Type, Dodge Viper. The F-Type in my humble opinion is the most fun to come out of Coventry on four wheels since the misunderstood XJ220 ceased production back in 1994. My personal preference is the V6S convertible with an 8-speed auto gearbox with paddles. Relatively high production numbers mean there are always plenty available so finding a good one should not be too hard. I added the Dodge Viper to the list to make sure there was something a bit on the insane side. Raw and single-minded are how I would sum it up but it’s hard not to like anything with 2 seats and a V10 stuffed in the nose. In many ways, the Viper makes most TVR’s seem quite polished. If you’re looking for an adrenaline kick, it’s hard to beat.

$50-75k range: Aston Martin DB9 Volante, Ferrari 308 GTB. There are few cars more elegant and appealing than a drop top V12 Aston. The DB9 is a proper polished Grand Tourer which can also be driven every day. I would rate these as one of the best value per $ on the market right now. The Ferrari 308 GTB is a personal favorite. I believe the early carb cars are the best of the bunch and a well sorted one is a joy to drive. The 308 handles like a go cart. Back country roads and twisty mountain drives are where it shines.

$75-100k range: Maserati Grantursimo Cabriolet, Audi R8 V10. The Maserati Granturismo Cabriolet is another family favorite. The Ferrari supplied V8 is a gem and sounds fantastic. While more GT than Sports car, it is a car you can drive from Paris to Rome via the Swiss Alps in a day and emerge un-battered. The Granturismo is as happy cruising as it is being pushed. In this price range you should be able to find your choice of low miles V10 Audi R8 Coupes or Spyders. The R8 is both impressively quick and quite forgiving. Hence a great choice for a first supercar.

$100-150k range: Ferrari 550 Maranello, McLaren 12C Spider. When the 550 Maranello was launched in 1996, it was the 1st great front engine V12 Ferrari Grand Tourer since the demise of the legendary Daytona back in 1973. While a 550 is capable of handling the Swiss Alpine passes, it is most at home crushing continents. It has ample luggage space for a multiweek road trip, wonderfully supportive seats, and a gearbox that invites you to come play. The 12C Spider was McLaren’s first attempt at a “mass” produced road car. The combination of carbon fibre tub, twin turbo V8 producing 616 bhp, and seven-speed dual-clutch transmission combined to form a package that is still near top in class. Build quality on the 12C improved during the production run with a 2014 being the best of the breed.

$150-200k range: Ferrari 430 Scuderia, McLaren 650S Spider These are two of my favorites. It’s hard to top the experience of driving a 430 Scuderia across the Scottish Highlands. The single clutch F1 gearbox is quick, sharp, & as the last iteration developed by Ferrari, best in class. The Scuderia is a beautifully balanced car that urges you to drive it hard. It’s also the last Ferrari that still feels more analogue than digital. Definitely a future classic. The McLaren 650S Spider was the interim model between the 12C and 720S. The 650S addressed a number of the perceived shortcomings of the 12C and is a better car in a large number of small ways. I have used one as my daily driver for the last 3 years and can’t recommend it highly enough. Hugh amounts of performance, beautifully weighted steering, and the best suspension in its class.

$200-600K range: Ferrari 365 GTB/4 Daytona, Porsche Carrera GT Both of these sit right at the high end of this price range and for good reason. The Ferrari Daytona is one of the greatest GTs ever produced and the Carrera GT maybe the purest driver’s car to emerge from Stuttgart. The V12 in the Daytona is a work of art and produces perhaps the best sound track of any road car. The V10 in the Carrera GT had its roots in a development project originally for F1 and later resurrected for Le Mans. Neither car likes to potter around and both come alive near the speed limit. The Daytona is a work out to parallel park, but handling is light and precise at speed. The Carrera GT’s clutch requires patience to master but rewards when you do. It is hard to go wrong with either.

$600k-1.5M: Ferrari F40, Koenigsegg CCX. The Ferrari F40 makes most 10 ten greatest car list and for good reason. To drive one is to understand why. There is little that the F40 doesn’t do well. It is equally at home on a cross continental road trip, being wrung out on an alpine pass, or at a race track. The Koenigsegg CCX is my favorite of the Koenigseggs. Much more polished and drivable than the early cars but still full of the character and personality one would expect from a small bespoke manufacturer.

Opinions and recommendations are just that. At the end of the day, always buy what speaks to you.

Below is the original list from about 5 years ago. Values on quite a few have changed significantly

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With Spring finally coming, quite few friends and acquaintances’ have recently approached me for advice on what to buy for summer motoring fun. These are normally discussions I quite enjoy and gain quite a few insights from. Most focus on the more modern cars, post circa 1990, as I tend to be more familiar with a wider range of makes and models in this era. My first two questions normally are: what is your budget, and how do you plan on using the car. On the first and for the sake of simplicity here, we will group budgets as £ 15-25k, 25-50k, 50-75k, 75-100k, 100-125, 125-150k, 150-200k, and 200-250k. In terms of use, focus here will be on weekend fun, with the emphasis on it being a great driver’s car. As these are all cars that the person would want for immediate enjoyment, new cars have not been considered. As this is a blog and not a book, I will limit my comments to my top two choices in each price bracket.

Starting at the top of the financial brackets:

£200k-250k range: I found this group to be an easy decision, clear votes for the Porsche Carrera GT and Jaguar XJR-15. The Carrera GT is a huge amount of car for the money and a real bargain (to the extent you could ever call a £250k car a bargain) right now. It is a proper old school supercar with a hugely impressive engine, CF tub, 6 speed manual gearbox, Carbon Ceramic brakes, and a reputation for biting if you don’t respect it properly. The Carrera GT has lots of character and it requires real skill to drive well. The Jaguar XJR-15 is basically a road legal Group C racecar. With a 6 liter V12, carbon tub, offset seating position, and huge AP racing brakes, it doesn’t get any more focused than this. The XJR-15 is a great uncompromised driver’s car.

£150k-200k range: This is another easy one in terms of recommendations. The two best supercars to be launched in the last several years sit in this price band right now and some early examples can even be found for slightly less. Both are V8s, mid-engine, ultra smooth dual clutch gearbox, and have everyday usability. Performance is staggering yet both can crawl through traffic without blowing a gasket or turning into a rolling BBQ. The two recommendations here are the Ferrari 458 Italia & McLaren MP4-12C.

£125k-150k range: I have always found this a much tougher range to make a call in. Looking at the market today, the two that would be the most tempting are the Lamborghini Murcielago/LP640 and the Ferrari 430 Scuderia. Finding a nice Scuderia for sale these days is not easy and there is a very good reason for it, they are great focused driver’s cars that will always put a smile on your face. The Scuderia is the last in the line of the V8 F1 single clutch models and by far the best of the breed. The Murcielago is Lamborghini at its best, large, loud, with tons of presence. Unlike some of the earlier Lambos, the Murci drives brilliantly and does not require physical therapy after more than 10 minutes behind the wheel.

£100k-125k range: Here I would have to go with the unloved and the little known. In terms of £ for performance you are not going to beat the McLaren Mercedes SLR or the Mosler MT900S. The Mosler has the pure driver’s car box smothered, and on the track will blow just about everything else this side of an Enzo into the weeds. In addition to what it can do on the track, the Mosler has excellent road manners and can deal with traffic and speed bumps. The McMerc is just a huge amount of car for the money right now, a nice balance of comfort in the best of the GT tradition with blistering performance. The new upgrade packages offered through McLaren Special Operations address many of the perceived negatives and make it an even more tempting choice.

£75k-100k range: Very tough to make a choice in this range as there are a lot of great options. Top of my recommended list would have to be the Porsche 911 (997) GT3. There is a reason the GT3 has won a ton of awards, it is simply an outstanding piece of engineering that is brilliant on both road and track. Of any 911 range, the GT3 has always been my favorite. For the second choice, I am going to bend the rules a bit and go with a good but not great driver’s car that gets the nod on looks alone. I have always has a soft spot for the Aston Martin DBS.

£50k-75k range: It gets even tougher in this group as there is a wealth of choices. For performance and fun to drive, I would have to give the nod to the Audi R8 V10 and the Porsche 911 (977) Cabriolet. Both are beautifully engineered, well built, and exciting to drive cars. Each has plenty of performance and high limits which make them a blast to push down an empty “B” road on an early Sunday morning. As a wildcard if you need 4 seats, the Ferrari 612 Scaglietti is a fantastic choice. It handles and goes like a car half its size.

£25k-50k range: In the more affordable category are two of my favorite Ferraris, the 360 Spider and the 550 Maranello. On the 360 Spider, personal preference would be for the 6 speed manual. On a nice summer day with the roof down, the sound of the 400 bhp flat crankshaft V8 is enthralling. The 550 Maranello is more than a worthy successor for the Daytona and it seems to only be getting better with age. It is hard to beat a Ferrari V12 and the 550 is one of the best.

£15k-25k range: And finally in the budget category, two old favorites, the TVR Griffith and Lotus Elise. The TVR & Lotus are both hugely fun to drive, can be pushed hard, and have character in abundance. Before buying a Griffith though, taking out a RAC or AA membership is not a bad idea as the TVR can be as frustrating as it is brilliant. The Elise is the car that saved Lotus and for good reasons, to this day it is one of the sweetest handling cars ever produced.

The above is just one Petrolhead’s opinion. At the end of the day, you should buy the car you really love.

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April 2018

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McLaren 675LT Spider – Brilliance from Woking

We have owned the McLaren 675 LT Spider for a year and a half now. It is one of the few cars I have bonded to almost instantly. In terms of driving thrill and engagement, I would put it in my top three, along with the Ferrari F40 and F50. Looking back, collecting the McLaren 675LT Spider was the most excited I have been about picking up a new car since the arrival of the Ferrari F40 back in 2006 (see karenable article: https://karenable.com/1st-four-days-with-the-ferrari-f40/ ) . The configuration we decided upon was anything but subtle combining rather bright Tarocco Orange paint work with an orgy of carbon fiber. Build quality is easily the best of any McLaren I have owned to date. Our 675LT Spider was spec’ed for road use and is unlikely to ever see a track. As such we did opt for the more comfortable electric heated seats, electric steering column, vehicle lift and the full leather interior. I would have preferred the manual racing buckets, but Mrs. SSO was fairly prescriptive when it came to the seats referencing a not so pleasant 10 hour she once spent in the F40’s utilitarian buckets crossing the Swiss Alps.

Having owned multiple McLaren’s, it’s interesting to see where the 675LT fits in the portfolio. When the 675LT first came out, I heard multiple comments that placed it basically on par with the P1. Having driven both back to back a few times in an attempt to build a robust comparison, my key takeaways on the 675LT Spider are that it is hugely capable across a wider range of conditions, and performance is immense while still being quite accessible. It is much more “real world” useable than the P1 and doesn’t have the same intimidation factor. The P1 creates separation though is in its ability to warp time and rearrange your brain cells. The way the P1 moves, reacts to inputs, and sounds, are all unique vs. any other car. That having been said, there is something about the 675LT that puts a smile on my face every time I drop into the driver’s seat.

The difference between the 650S and the 675LT is actually what I found to be more surprising given that the latter is based on the former. Unlike the Maranello Specials, the 675LT does not feel like a 650S that has been turned up to 11 and had all the carpeting ripped out. It feels like a completely re-engineered car. The 675LT has a polished rawness which has huge personal appeal. The power band is very different, the engine revs more freely, & the handling is both sharper and more responsive, yet it is neither jittery or fells high strung. Overall the 675LT is much more focused driving machine which is hugely impressive given how competent the 650S already is.

The 675LT Spider’s life today is a bit different from the rest of the fleet. It lives up north in ski country close to several of the best driving roads in the US. It’s destiny for the next several years is long morning drives across the mountains on roads it is designed to devour. Last summer one of my son’s and I drove the 675LT the 1600 miles up to its new home in a short day and a half sprint. The trip was done with the powertrain set to sport and the handling to normal which allowed for rapid progress while not bouncing the teeth out of our heads. We drove through sun, torrential downpour, over the mountains, and with temperatures well over 100 F to start and under 40 F at the end of the journey. During this the 675LT never put a foot wrong. Probably the toughest part of the entire trip was resisting the temptation to really open it up while driving across the vast expanses of Wyoming. At one point we went close to an hour without passing through a town or seeing another car on the road. The only negative on the trip was a small chip left on the windscreen from a rock that came off the back of a truck.

Given just how much we all enjoy driving the McLaren 675LT Spider, it has already been designated a long term ” keeper”. It is rare that you find a car with this much character and the performance to back it up. The 675LT Spider puts a smile on my face every time I drive it. It is a car that fully embodies “the thrill of driving”.

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February 2018

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McLaren 650S – Life as a Daily Driver

I have been using a McLaren 650S Spider as my daily driver for the last 2 ½ years. I was originally quite hesitant to trade in the last of our McLaren 12C Spider’s for the 650S Spider. I really was not sure the upgrade would be worth the cost of exchange as the 2014 model year 12C was already very very good. Having owned three 12C’s, the difference between the early 2012 and late 2014 was significant. Looking back now, I am delighted I took the plunge. While none of the changes are dramatic, together they add up to a car that is simply better at everything it does. The other bonus has been the 650S’ complete reliability and a noticeable lack of any unexpected mystery warning lights that are such a staple of the Ferrari experience. Even the notorious IRIS entertainment system has been tantrum free and the Bluetooth phone connection almost works well. During this same period, we have had three major issues with the allegedly bullet-proof Porsche Cayenne. The maintenance costs on the 650S have been less than half vs. the Cayenne.

In its role as a daily driver, the 650S continues to perform with distinction. The short stretch of highway I take on my daily commute seems to be under constant construction which has left the road surface quite chewed up in places. While I can see other cars bouncing around, the McLaren suspension soaks it all up and remains well planted. I have never arrived at a destination in the 650S feeling like I have been beaten up. The never ending construction has also resulted in a couple of the ramps connecting the two highways I use being cut to one lane. The resulting corners are now quite tight and nearly everyone takes the ramps at 30 mph which is quite tricky as you then get dropped into traffic moving at 60+ mph. The 650S handles these corners easily at 50+ mph which makes for a much more comfortable situation.
The McLaren 650S Spider continues to show just how far supercars have come in terms of both reliability and usability. In the searing late summer heat, the temperature gauge never rises above normal, it never fails to immediately start up, the air-conditioning works, and it never hesitates when you want to suddenly unleash it should traffic open up. In winter, the rear always remains planted and the heated seats immediately take any chill off. The one surprising negative though has been the discovery on what happens when the car is left parked in the scorching sun for an extended period. The glue under the dash headliner vaporizes and leaves a nasty, very difficult to remove, film on the windscreen. Having made this mistake once, we now always hunt for shade when parking.

On top of being the daily driver, the 650S has become our default choice for Sunday outings, airport runs, and even smaller supermarket trips. Whoever designed the front boot did a great job as it easily swallows not only a cart full of groceries but also any bag that will fit in the overhead bin on a plane. With the mercury here bouncing all over the place the last couple of months, the McLaren’s brilliance in both coupe and spider configurations has made it an easy choice for weekend duty.
My current plan is to keep using the 650S as my daily driver for the foreseeable future. The initial plan was to trade in the 650S when we took delivery of the 720S last November. After a bit of debate with Mrs. SSO, it was the Ferrari 599 GTB HGTE that got the axe. We both agreed that the 650S was just too good to let go of at this point.

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February 2018

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McLaren 720S - One Month In

We have owned the McLaren 720S for a little over 2 months now. However, reality is we have only spent a month together as we were off in the mountains for half the time. To make matters even a bit more challenging, Mrs. SSO has taken a distinct liking to the 720S so seat time on my end has been in short supply. However, when I have been able to steal away with the key, the experience has been superb.

The 720S is the first all new Super Series model from McLaren since the launch of the original 12C back in 2011. While the 650S improved on the 12C in a whole host of ways, the improvements were both subtle & incremental. The core P11 series architecture remained the same. The 720S is a completely new car and you know it the minute you plunk yourself down in the driver’s seat. While all the 21st century McLaren road cars up to this point followed the same interior and controls layout, the 720S breaks from that set up. Initially I hated it. Many of the controls have been moved so finding what is now where was a bit of a pain. However, after a few days the new layout became much more intuitive and is actually more logical. In addition, the center infotainment system has been completely reconfigured and the functionality greatly upgraded. Infotainment systems have not been a McLaren strength to date but the one in the 720S is a significant improvement over the old IRIS system. The other major change is to the main instrument cluster. The 720S is fitted with a folding driver’s display that provides either basic information when retracted or the standard suite of info when fully open. Personally, I quite like minimalist retracted mode with fewer distractions.

The engine has been bored out to 4.0 liters and bhp is now over 700. While the 650S is a very quick car by any standards, it’s on a highway on ramp that the performance delta between the two models jumps out. The 720S just explodes towards the horizon when you mash the right-hand pedal. Personally, I don’t think there is much in it between the P1 & 720S. The 720S doesn’t deliver its performance with quite the same drama as the 675 LT but it’s definitely the quicker car and easier to live with on a daily basis. Ride quality, which has always been a McLaren strong suit, remains excellent and if anything, you now feel more connected to the road. I have yet to run into a road surface which the 720S was not able to handle. Grip is outstanding, and it generates a huge amount of confidence. Despite trying, to date I have not been able to get the rear to move off line. Steering weight is excellent, and the car goes immediately to where it is pointed.

In terms of what I would call livability, the 720S has moved the game along nicely. Getting in and out are now significantly easier vs. the 650S with a narrower sill and roof hinged doors. The cabin feels much roomier which is further enhanced by the highly recommended optional glass roof panels. Interior storage space has also been improved and even the charging port in the boot is now in a more logical location.

In summary, the 720S is huge leap forward for McLaren, not just in performance but across just about every dimension. Given how good the 650S is, delivering a game changer in the 720S is a major accomplishment.