Nicebiscuit

The only weird thing, is that if they're really 7.5 inch and et40 then how come they're practically flush when others in pics above appear to be running lower offsets with 8 inch rims. My car now has 16x7 et40 and I'd say I have more than half an inch to play with before they spill out of the wheel arches... Unless that's cause everyone else is running coilovers?

But personally I can't afford it, so I wouldn't enjoy it. I can justify the 86 because it's new, under warranty for quite a while and thus 'sensible' thus no big bills - but a Porsche I'd be scared of a big bill coming along. Bloody tempting though - that's a lot of car for £18k - good job I need the back seats, eh?

Can't really argue with that... :-) I too would like an earlier one - much earlier... Before I had kids I thought about getting a chrome bumpered 2.2 or 2.4 911 back when they were £20-25k. I thought it was a daft place to put my money - how wrong I was! :-D Should have bought a 3.2 Carrera five years ago too... Hindsight is a wonderful thing...

So what are you after then? I'm lucky as I need back seats. So given that I can't afford a sensible age/mileage 911, the lack of seats meant I couldn't be swayed by the various decent s/h caymans you see. Can't knock them - proper cars. Mind you, if you buy a Cayenne shame on you [emoji12] I do know someone who ran a sensibly chosen early 00s 911 Carrera and it didn't bite him financially, but I'm just not that brave!

Dear God - they're all just wrong. The red one looks like that daft special edition Pug 208Gti they just did which was described as looking like a strawberry dipped in chocolate. And the blue one was nice enough until somebody decided metallic purple would be a good colour for the highlights. Why? Luckily thus far I haven't seen any club members cars where I've had to be 'polite'.

Driveway? What's that [emoji1]?

Well that's pretty much a perfect fit, isn't it?

This is what mine looks like in the rain - there are wheels in there somewhere honest... :-) Really pleased actually. You can really feel the difference that lighter wheels bring. These are just over 6kg a corner - I weighed them... Not that you can tell, but they're ET40 so fill the arches a bit better too. All looks a bit rally car - the tyre fitter liked them [emoji4]

It does drive very well on them...

So finally something has happened to Bob other than being clouted... He's in rally mode, sporting 16x7s, winter tyres and mudflaps just in time for winter. Of course you can't see any of them properly in this photo, but it's raining so I'm not going outside...

I'll show you what mine looks like on 16s tomorrow... ;-). Mainly doing it because I coincidentally had the right sized winter tyres in the shed...

Are you absolutely sure? That's very pretty... Do you REALLY want a Porsche? I was just mulling the same the other day (big Porsche fan) and thought I might rather tweak this instead...

Cheers. Well, I've got til Spring to find some. Ah, yes the Fox fx005s. I think I remember you posting those before and me admiring them. They look a lot more expensive than they are - and that's a useful weight saving...

Double post arrgghh

Thanks all. By 'not ruining the handling' I guess I mean not altering the overall balance but a little more grip and more progressive loss of it. I realise I can get this by just sticking Yokos on the standard rims, but then it'd still look like a pram. Thanks for the photos - I think that makes my choice clear. 17s look fine (unusually for a modern car) it just needs them pushing out a little. 17x7.5-8 with less offset should be the best compromise for me. The black one with the ducktail has just the look I want, and Lauren's looks 'right' too. Is that black one running coilovers as well? The Orange one looks fantastic too, but a bit too far for me, and cheaper to get something light enough in 17x8 or thereabouts. I'd consider going that big, but I don't have the budget for the really tasty forged stuff...

I've never particularly understood the convention that none-hatchbacks don't get a wiper. Used to annoy me in my Saab and BMW too. As others have said - it's fine once on the move and up to speed, but it's a pain not being able to quickly clear it before you set off. As to the other gripes about visibility, I really think this car is excellent, especially for a sports model. The huge back window helps. The only gripes I have in that department is simply due to being low, but that goes with the territory. Anyone who thinks visibility is bad in this should try some of the recent crop of family cars with the mpv style front pillars. The Astra is downright dangerous - you can barely see out of the FRONT on that... Recent Peugeots are also pretty dire.

I don't see why anyone would be negative above the wide body look. Suits the shape - it goes all 911 turbo around the haunches which is never a bad thing... Of course a badly fitted wide body kit is another thing altogether... ;-)

It's a bit useless. I use the lever instead.

Ever driven an '86 on Motec Lauren?? I am more than capable of driving a car smoothly, but shouldn't have to "try" on such a modern car. Not that I'm the worlds greatest driver but the throttle is a bit weird. Not the easiest car to drive smoothly, and I'm used to driving dodgy old cars. It's just a foible and no big deal, but it's interesting if can be improved via mapping.

I would have one, if I had the car and two engines to put in it, but I'll tell you one thing, I wouldn't feature it in a build thread on this forum!!! Well, if you do, you must [emoji41]

On a slightly less tongue in cheek note... Firstly every car on this forum is a folly. We've deliberately bought something cramped, not particularly efficient and more expensive than strictly necessary purely so we can go 'wheeee' whilst tackling bends. The non-folly choice as a daily driver (coincidentally) would probably be a nice sensible Yaris. Several million pensioners can't be wrong... Arguably the 86 is a massive folly for Toyota full stop. Commercially is it really viable? Glad they made it though... Secondly, surely the reason this project and others like it are cool is the engineering challenge. Modding an MR2 would certainly be effective, but a more satisfying challenge to make this thing competitive surely? I imagine the build is half the fun. Wish I had the skills. So I'll add this to the list of brilliant projects I follow along with some others, like a guy I know from another forum that's built a Talbot camper van running a tuned Saab turbo motor, another guy with a mid engined spaceframed Reliant kitten, and the Saab specialists that have busied themselves mating a heavily modded classic 96 bodyshell onto modern 9-3 Aero running gear. All completely mad. All brilliant.

Now this I'd like to see! So would I. Wish me luck in next weeks lotto draw then... :-D

Which is all fine until my LFA engined HiAce is ready... [emoji6]

Test drives are pretty unrepresentative in a lot of cases. It's rare you get a proper amount of time behind the wheel. As for seat comfort - I'm a short arse, but found it took me a while to adjust. I actually find it uncomfortable when I sit right back in the seat. Now I actually shuffle my bottom forward a bit so I'm more in the 'bucket'. Seems all wrong as I'm nearly slouching, but now it's really comfy. I'd rather the seat base tilted though - I miss that from my BMW.

...and the above is exactly why it's cool. [emoji41]