Want to Buy.....

….a winter hack while the SORN’d Cayman takes a rest from the salt, rain, ice, dark and general sh*teness of winter motoring in the UK. In its stead, I plan to run another car from November to March/April, something cheap to buy and run, practical, but still offering a decent level of reliability and performance.

By ‘Cheap’ I mean less than £3k, and ‘cheap to run’ means can be fixed with parts from GSF by a local garage, and is capable of achieving 30mpg or more on a decent run. By ‘Practical’ I mean it should be a hatch or estate (so I can bung children and bikes in), which offers decent comfort and has working a/c to help demist in winter rain.

And by ‘decent performance’ I mean enough grunt for ‘A’ road overtaking.

And nothing later than March ’01 because I already contribute enough road tax to our miserable and ineffective government’s coffers thanks.

Plus points will be awarded for greasy road friendly 4wheel drive, stability control, Xenon headlights, and the possibility of finding a cheap spare set of wheels with winter tyres.

My current short (but ever expanding) list in possible order of preference contains:

- Volkswagon Golf Mk3 VR6/2.0 16v
- Subaru Impreza GX estate (the 2.0 n/a one with bug eyes)
- MG ZS 180 (the Civic bodied V6 one)
- Audi A4 1.8T Quattro (hmm, maybe I should push this up the list)
- BMW (E36) 325i (but difficult to find one that hasn’t been ‘improved’ by some chav)
- Saab 9-3 turbo (although I don’t understand the ever-changing turbo range line-up)
- Ford Mondeo ST200 (not the very first series)


Regretfully rejected for cost reasons are:
- Civic Type R (the flying iron one)
- Audi A2tdi 90 (I know, it misses some of the points above, but I like ‘em)
- Fiat Panda 100hp (still £7k for an early one)
- Audi A8

Regretfully rejected for other arbitrary reasons are:
- Subaru Legacy (just too much like some Toyota minicab)
- Vauxhall Vectra V6 (God no, and do they still put the brake pedal 3” above the gas to prevent the hard of thinking pressing both at once?)
- BMW 5/7 series barges (barges)
- Mercedes 190e 2.3/2.5l 16v (I’d love it way too much)

So, if anyone in Blogland has any suggestions I’d be up for it.

SS7