After almost 20 years as a petrol head, I’ve decided its time to take a look back at all the fun and interesting machinery.
My ownership experience has been quite diverse from WRC wannabies, bavaria’s best, british beef, american muscle, and track day specials. I have enjoyed them all and hope to enjoy many more to come.
Been and Gone
Peugeot 306 XS 1.6 – Bought in 2003, sold around 2006 – Braked poorly, handled ok, very slow, always broken, very loud sound system with a 12″ sub and 1200w amp! First entry into DIY with brake cylinders, gearbox replacement, exhaust leaking, ball joints, stereo wiring & cambelt snapped. Bought for £3k, sold for £1500 – including the £1500 stereo/amp/sub which values the car at zero.
2004 Ford Focus 1.8 Edge – Bought Jan 2006, sold around 2010 – In comparison to the Pug it was fast and stopped well – but so is walking. A trusty and fun steed with everything well designed inside and out. A few cosmetic changes and started to learn about detailing with clay bars. Slept in it during wales WRC events more than once. Only sold as upgraded to an M3. Bought for £8k sold for £3k.
1998 Subaru Impreza v4 WRX STI – Bought Nov 2008 and sold around 2010 – My first performance car and it was brilliant. 300bhp by the time I had finished with decat, H&S exhaust and anti-lag. Completed my first few trackdays which got me addicted. Went like a stabbed rat off the line. Any snowy day and I miss having this around! Bought for £3k sold for £4k (the ECU alone was over a grand).
1995 Landrover 300TDI – Bought around 2008, sold around 2018 – Not actually my car, but I spent so much time driving this car off-road over the last 10 years I thought it was worth mention. Bought from auction for £1700, never fully working but also never fully broken. Unstoppable with front, rear and center diff locks. Complete with chequer plate rear windows after they were smashed out on some difficult tracks.
1993 Defender TDI – Bought around 2010 with the aspiration to drive to Ulanbaatar in outer Mongolia and around the Sahara desert. Having a proper job put a stop to those ideas and ended up being offroaded with the Disco. Just like the disco it was never fully working but also never fully broken (thanks Dad). It once drove 30 miles home towing the Disco (snapped cambelt) FWD only as it had a destroyed rear diff after a day off roading. Huge tyres & a big lift made it unstoppable.
2004 E46 M3 SMG Bought 2010, sold 2016- Both the Subaru and Focus made way for this car. A true dream car after being taken for a blast in one when I was 18. 5 years later I would have my very own and with no responsibilities I could do what I liked with it. I loved this car and spent an absolute fortune on it over 6 years replacing everything mechanical and cosmetic. I ended up getting bored however after a carbon air box and supercharger conversion to 550bhp left me still wanting a TVR. If I had the space and money I should have kept this car. The SMG wasn’t nearly as bad as every said! I did a few trackdays but as my pride and joy it felt too risky. Our first tour the Alps were also completed in the M3 but each time we broke down due to the SMG fuse. Try souring one of these in the Pyrenees on a Sunday without speaking a word of Spanish!. Bought for £14.5k. Sold for £15k (after spending about £15k on it!). I would happily have this car back for keeps and in my opinion is one of the best looking cars ever created with sublime handling if a little crashy.
1996 E36 M3 Evo Bought Feb 2011 and written off March 2012 – Fully into trackdays at this point and addicted to M3’s I bought an e36 M3 Evo for £3k. This was probably my worst conditioned car purchase. I always break the rules when buying cars, at night, in the rain, first example, don’t test drive it and it has never done me wrong. Soon as I parked this car up it started leaking petrol. I spent about a month fixing various issues and installing internally routed brakes lines with Porsche Brembos, only to crash it the very next trackday.
2007 Mazda RX8 231 – Bought around 2013 for £2.5k with a recently rebuilt engine. A few aspects of this car I really liked: the seats, gear shift, light weight, and, as it was cheap, parking it anywhere I liked without care. I bought this car with the aspiration to enter the RX8 race series. In typical fashion, inception to car purchase took a single weekend. I later found out the series require a factory sealed engine for £3.5k which put a stop to that plan. I did a couple of trackdays in it but found the lack of power, lack of torque and thirst for petrol unacceptable. I also seem to be the only person in the world to dislike the sound. To me they sounds like a food blender. How can they make 9k rpm sound so mundane? There is no zip/zing/urgency. It had the same MPG as my M3 but was as slow as a Fiesta ST. Fun to drive though. Great car for the price. Would be brilliant with basically any other 250bhp+ engine in it.
2002 TVR Tuscan with FFF engine – Bought 2016, sold 2016 – The TVR Tuscan was another one of my childhood dream cars. I was very disappointed to find out this was one of those “don’t meet your hero” cars. Don’t get me wrong, it looked sexy as hell from 10ft away and sounded like an angry god. In the 5 minutes per year where the stars aligned with a good road, conditions, traffic and the car working it was the best motoring experience in the world. The rest of the time however you are left with criminal handling and truly atrocious build quality. Best brakes of any car however, and was a hoot around the Alps when it wasn’t torturing me in 36 dec C Italy!
1998 M3 evo – PX’d the RX8 with cash their way for this track modified E36 M3 Evo. It was pretty shoddy and well used but it was bloody brilliant fun an extremely reliable. I basically learned to drive properly in this car on track and setup suspension. Dozens of trackdays completed without a hint of issue. Full cage, buckets, stripped & coilovers it was a weapon. I had an interesting moment where the engine mount snapped in a 4th gear 100mph drift. The engine fell on the steering column locking the steering. I spun and the engine stalled locking all 4 brand new V70a’s flat spotting them down to the cords. Sold this car to buy a racing car.
Tiger ZR6 Race car – having racked up the miles in the M3’s on track I needed a harder challenge and wanted to buy a Bike Engined Caterham type car or a Caterham type race car. When I saw the ZR6 for sale I couldn’t resist and bought it totally unseen other then a few vids of it online racing. Staggering performance with a fully forged and meth injected supercharged duratec pushing 300bhp through a straight cut gearbox. Surprisingly easy to drive and slide, however, after extensively changing the cabin I simply didn’t fit and it was going to take an investment to get it comfortable. This plus a few cold rainy trackdays in a row, and not getting on with the di-dion rear axel, it had to go. Wicked machine but it was time to move on.
2007 Saab 9-5 estate – Bought to tow the Tiger and the new dog. Great machine and it even earned the nickname “the mighty saab” but I cant really remember why. Handling was crap and it was slow but somehow endearing. Rear ended someone at about 10MPH and wrote it off. I repaired it for a whopping 300 quid and sold it on when I should have kept it!
2005 Corvette Z06 – bought & sold in 2017 – I love excel and trawling PH classifieds and fastestlap.com. A combination of these habits lead me to discovering that the Z06 is the out and out best track car you can buy for 35k. For those unfamiliar, a 7l dry sumped LS7 V8 pushing 505 BHP standard, massive 345 section tyres, manual, carbon fibre wings and roof, 1400kg curb weight, adjustable exhaust noise and massive 6pot callipers which take 12 pads each axel. It was the dream car I never knew I wanted until I did. I may even go as far as saying this is the best car I have ever owned and the one the got away. I only had to sell due to a change in job and needed the cash. Absolute weapon on track, rotates lovely, hauls ass like nothing else and sounds like hell let loose! Out of all my cars it is the only one which is comfortable enough to drive to track, but also raw enough on track. My car had upgrade cams & decat making 565 bhp and I had aspirations to take it further. The only real failure of this car was that it wasn’t very fun an a b-road blast due to the width of the thing, being LHD with very wide tyres. That could be easily fixed however….excuse me while I go open the classifieds for a bit.
Current Fleet
2014 Merc C63 Estate – Bought 2018 and still own – When I first drove a W204 C63 it immediately felt “right”. I am not sure exactly what it was. It just felt like putting on a pair familiar gloves, a strange mix of e46 rightness and corvette firepower. A shockingly good car and big enough for the kid and dog. Does alright on a track too except it gets a bit hot and annihilates consumables. I have just ordered black series radiators to ensure any future days the temps are kept in check, however this is my daily so they will be few and far between. Merc did a great job of making this car handle like an axe murderer without it actually being one, however there is compromise: the composure falls away after 8 tenths. Hopefully this will be corrected soon with an LSD. It is an absolute joy to slide and blast around country roads. Imagine a V8 Labrador-Lion-cross puppy, mental to start with but actually very friendly with an impressive roar. With the way cars are going, this one will be for keeps. Granted, at some point, I have said that about every single car on this list! Whenever I get an itch to change, I simply take it for a drive. Morning commutes have never been so fun! Am I the only person to go down in engine size to a 6.2L? (from 7l Z06).
2007 – Z4M Roadster – Bought 2019 – Still own – Wanting another M3 for track days, but a convertible like the TVR, what better option than a Z4M Roadster. Bought in Winter 2019 and have only managed a few track days since due to lockdowns and becoming a Dad. The car is very good but lacks the handling finesse of the E46 and the noise of the vette.
2007 FN2 Honda Civic Type R – bought 2012 – still own. Again, not technically my car (Mrs E46M3C’s) but I have driven it a fair amount so worth mention. What an absolute belter of a car. I have had some serious machines but few put a smile on my face like this one does. It’s rev hungry and makes a great sound as stock, its taut and feels fast even when you aren’t doing so. Immensely practical and cheap enough to not to care about tip runs. I am glad I only drive this car occasionally though as the ride quality is horrendous and the power becomes boring / lack of torque for commute. I am also a tiny bit too tall for this car and the pedals could be further apart. We have had this car 9 years and 80k miles and has been 100% reliable. 2021 is the year this car will move on however as we need rear doors and a big boot and I cant justify having 2 track cars. If this car had rear doors it might be another keeper.
2010 Mondeo Titanium X – bought 2016 – still own – Bought to replace the Saab. The main attraction was that it has radar cruise control which is great flying up and down the motorway to various trackdays. A strangely forgettable car despite it now being one of the longest cars I have owned. It basically does everything just enough, nothing more and nothing less and so it is characterless. Its so unloved I don’t even have a picture of it!
Prize Giving
Best Engine – Has to be the M156 in the C63. A masterpiece of engineering with a sonorous voice, masses of lowdown torque and top end firepower. Characterful, powerful & reliable. Makes all other engines seem crap in comparison & we will never see such an engine again.
Best Noise – LS7 in the Corvette Z06. Similar in a way to the C63 but less orchestrated and more mad-man-race-car. Straight piped TVR Seed 6 is a close second.
Most fun on the road – C63 – Its just such a playful yet stable and predictable chassis. Merc did a great job to make it feel like an axe murderer without it actually being one.
Most fun on the track – Z4M Roadster as its handling foibles make it kind of challenging to get ten tenths from. I also love the additional exposure to sound and smell the convertible brings. The Corvette Z06 should probably win but I only completed a couple of days and so cannot really make a judgement. Whilst the Tiger was fast as hell, it just didn’t feel intuitive to drive without independent suspension.
Fastest accelerating– Corvette Z06, I clocked a 4.0 to 60 without launching it on a performance box. The Tiger ZR6 was probably quicker with a reported 3.0 to 60, but alas I never launched the thing to find out.
Fastest top speed – Joint win E46 M3 supercharged and Corvette Z06. I had the E46 off the clocks at Bruntingthorpe with a recorded GPS max of 180mph. The Corvette Z06 at RAF Marham I stopped looking at the speedo at an indicated 175 mph, I would imagine we were nudging an indicated 200 by the braking zone.
Most Reliable – Honda Civic Type R – 80k covered over 9 years and only replaced consumables.
Least reliable – Joint between Peugeot 306 and E46 m3. At least I expected the 306 to be a turd. The E46 had rear subframe crack, both front lower control arms and bushes, rear control arms bushes, alternator, oil filter housing, oil level sensor, washer fluid sensor, parking sensors, SMG 40 amp fuse (later diagnosed to an over filled reservoir), wing mirror glass, rear view mirror glass, all interior plastic trim, ignition coils, wheel bearings.
Life Behind Cars 