Car appreciation... the aesthetics, the engineering, etc

When you say virtually, could you give me a better understanding of how you use the term?

Mk1 is my dream 'pop up headlight' mid life car (i'm a few years off, hopefully). That one yours?

On a completely unrelated topic. Buying my first car soon, a '98 3 door Golf. Any tips on how to not get fucked by insurance in London? I have 3 years no claims, but not as a policy holder. This counts for nothing right?

Adding parents/grandparents to policy? What else mighy help?

Job title, spouse / partner. Only add parents if they're <60yo.

Play with Xs.

That's utterly superb! Garage shot is on the money.

Just small amounts of surface rust to the edges of steel sections and a few rusty bolts.
It’s my fourth mx5 and is by far the best drive of any of them. Seem significantly quicker than the others, obviously still not fast though

Recaros?

Yarp, if interested here's the build thread.

I took the Porsche out yesterday, did find myself thinking “does this need another 120 horsepower?”, then told myself to stop being so silly- of course it does.

Student, although I'll be doing an industrial placement starting in august for 12 months. Single and my dad has had a claim (albeit not his fault) in the last 3 years. Does adding >60yo s not help? Will adding people I'm not related to help?

Any tips on how to not get fucked by insurance in London?

Don’t insure it in London.
I can insure my bike for £900 third party in London or £280 fully comp at my parents 🤦🏼‍♂️

NB?

The car will be (mostly) kept at my parents place in London...
Is that not a breach of the insurance contract?

Yeah then it’s unavoidable.
Put a parent on as an occasional driver, can sometimes bring it down a little.
Or limited mileage cap, dreaded black box thing that measures how naughty you drive.

limited mileage cap

How stringent will this be? I have no idea how many miles I'll do in a year. I'll talk to them tomorrow about my Dads insurance claim, see if putting him on will help
Reeaallly don't want a black box, and doesn't usually help in London that much because they see you driving during rush hour in 'dangerous areas'. Had one the past year and even driving carefully as possible it doesn't let you get scores above 50/100 because of where and when you are driving

Well you can choose your estimated miles. I put 3k on my bike but I’ve actually done 5 this year. If I had to claim, I’ve no doubt they would try to get out of it.
Although when getting quotes I can put mine up to 10k+ and it doesn’t change the price now so I won’t bother next time. My insurance has just run out so I’m looking for a new bike and then have to go through the whole thing again

I'll have a play on comparison sites, see what happens. The cars only worth <£400 so I can't see it ever being economical to repair it. Worth just getting 3rd party fire and theft? Or is fully comp worth it

Great vid. Makes me miss my GTi6 even more:

https://youtu.be/9qCmwCnNeMA

No, just standard seats

Yes

I used to have a 205 mi16 track car and any event I went on it was always the mx5s who seemed to be having the most fun. But I agree more power us always good

Got a picture? I love an mx5

Well I test drove a 2019 RS3. Dealer let me lay into it on a twisty on-ramp. Blistering speed but less eventful and fun than my MK6 GTI. Also the handling is mushy at road speeds compared to my GTI. The GTI has Bilstein b6 and sport springs, but I was surprised at how underwhelming the road going experience is. I guess if you're hitting warp speed regularly at a track it could be fun, but it's not really a track car. The whole thing strikes me as a huge expense for quiet capability you never really use.

The way it pulls at highway speeds is uncanny though

I'll find an M2 to test that see if it's more engaging.

Otherwise I'm back to the more sensibly priced R vs STI vs m240 vs whatever else.

this is just wonderful dude. love it

Thanks man, I love your green fiat. Such a pretty car.