Is it a good idea to buy a fixer-upper if you know fuck all about cars?
I've seen a Porsche 944 for sale that's a category N write-off that I'm considering going for. On the one hand, I'd have no real idea what I'm doing and I'm not a very handy person. I have, however, watched Wheeler Dealers and that's the extent my knowledge goes.
Looking at that car, I wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole. It's just going to be a massive fucking money sink. Just as far as cosmetic things the front bumper needs repairing/replacing. The seats and carpet are fucked and would need replacing.
It's a non-starter and the engine bay looks rusty as fuck so the engine mounts are likely fucked, meaning if you got it running there's a good chance the engine would just fall out of it.
I'm not a car person either, but I'd assume anything a person is still getting MOTs and insurance for is a better deal for most purposes than a pile of metal that was once a car.
For a hobby - to learn how to fix cars - maybe. As an investment or a way to obtain a mode of transport - FUCK NO.
A 944 wasn't particularly practical to fix when it was brand new, never mind now, and written off. It'd be a meaty project to learn on, but it'll cost you a lot of time and money and there's no guarantee it'll ever be road legal again.
There's a reason that thing's going for a grand when a working one goes for 8k. It's scrap, unless you do a proper restoration project and probably replace most of the parts in the process - probably costing you between five to ten grand in the end, depending on how good you actually turn out to be at wrenching.
I'd highly recommend you buy the worlds greatest sports car, the Mazda MX-5. You can absolutely get an ACTUAL fixer-upper for five hundred notes that will need work you can probably handle. They're Japanese, notoriously reliable, and so many were made that you'll always get pars - they still make parts for the Mk1 even though it's about 25 years old.
You can get a fully working, decent condition Mk1 or 2 for that price, and learn on that. Trust me, you'll actually enjoy it. They're phenomenal cars for what they are. Not fast, but so, so much fun, and famously capable in the corners.
TL;DR get something Japanese and that isn't written off unless you like calling scrap merchants and asking them if they collect.
Sell the private number plate and replace the knackered bodywork with that money, and probably still have a bit of cash left over to make sure it gets through the next MOT.
Also while I'm here, the Mitsubishi FTO is indeed a good car, undersold in this country though, so parts may be harder to come by. They're cool as fuck, mind. A Toyota Celicia or Supra are good ways to go too, though the prices might be stacked on the latter.
Honestly anything Japanese will do it. There's plenty of fine classic German cars and even some Brits, but their reliability and ease of service is nothing like the JDMs.
>>4052 My mum owned a Mazda MX-5, I've had three work colleagues own Mazda MX-5s and they were all women.
It's a woman's car. I mean, I'm bisexual but I'm not that much of a massive puff that I could get away with driving one. It's one step away from driving a pink VW Beetle with eyelashes on the headlights.
I own a 6th gen Celica. I would say I've learned to wrench on it, but in the 2 years and 10-15,000 miles I've put on it it's not needed anything more than an oil change and a new tyre.
If you get the 6th gen, if you want fast make sure you get the 2.0 GT because the 1.8 ST that I have really isn't fast; if you're looking for reliability, the 1.8 7A-FE has legendary reliability - mine has 123,000 miles and runs like a dream. The Celica (with the exception of the ludicrously expensive GT-Four) is FWD, though, so do bear that in mind.
7th gen celicas are a bit more powerful but look ugly to me.
Supras have a definite scene tax (Fast and Furious made them objects of desire), these days you're looking at £4k minimum for a beat up non-turbo automatic one.
FTOs are great cars but also FWD and the transmission was very advanced for its time, so if something fucks in that, you may well have a 1.5ton paperweight on your hands.
The MX-5, for all reasons detailed above, is a perfect sports car and a perfect car for learning to wrench on. Only hyper-masculine blokes' blokes with the obvious insecurities that came with it care if it's a poofters'/womens' car.
The Mk1 MX-5 is a hugely popular entry-level racing car. The BRSCC and 750MC both have large championship fields. It's reliable, rear-wheel-drive, beautifully balanced and fairly cheap to run. It's the ideal introduction to performance motoring.
The original Mini is popular with women because it's cute, but it's also popular with enthusiasts because it has tremendous handling. There are no men's cars and women's cars, only good cars and bad cars.
The only people who think the MX-5 (or really any car) is a 'womans car' are people who don't know about cars, plain and simple. Drive one and you'll see, they're utter joy.
I'll also chuck in another idea, if you're just looking for something that goes fast and doesn't break down too much, a Skoda Octavia VRS MK1.
It's built on the gen 5(?) Golf platform, so it's reliable and the engines will go for 200k miles easily. They're about 180bhp stock, which is not bad at all for a car you can get for a grand and a half, and with a decent intake and some tuning you can get that up to 220 with not much fuss at all. I had one for a while and I managed to get it running 280 at the wheels after a new hybrid turbo. Sadly it went to scrap heaven eventually for reasons entirely out of my control (i.e I wrote it off on a track day)
Here's a picture of her since it's been crushed now. RIP.
If you take your perceived image this seriously I'm not sure why you want a twenty year old sports car held together with zip ties and hope, mate. You'll not look any cooler in a 944.
All I, and most of the motoring community can say on the matter is you're absolutely missing out if you take this approach.
Also, I think the correct term of disparagement for an MX-5 is that it's a hairdressers car.
Mk1: It's like a gokart; a little underpowered, and unless you never take them out in the rain the vents above the engine bay tend to let the rain in and ruin the engine electronics.
Mk2: If you do not treat this car with respect it WILL kill you. Most people aren't used to mid-rear layouts and tend to overcorrect when the car inevitably oversteers, causing a phenomenon known as 'snap oversteer'.
Mk3: It's a knockoff Boxster, and doesn't have the character of the first two generations. But, it's a solid car, much easier to drive than the Mk2 and won't try and kill you (as much).
Nonetheless, treated with respect an MR2 will be one of the most fun cars to drive and you'll be surprised just how punchy the 1.6 4A-GE can be.
>>4060 As far as fast family cars go, I don't think you can do much better than the Vectra 2.8 V6 turbo - 250bhp stock (or the 3.2 N/A GSi with 207) with huge tuning potential, and also it's the ultimate sleeper - no-one expects to get blasted by a fucking vectra. Parts are cheap, it's easy to work on, and extremely practical.
I bought it like that, I swear. And I wish it was plastidip - the black is literally the paint you use to coat stoves with. I know this because there was still a can of it rattling around in the boot when I took it home.
Apparently some bloke had bought it to try and turn it into a 'mad drift nugget' as the kids say, but he got bored and traded it into a combined MX5/Porsche specialist dealer. I was there buying something or other for the Boxster I had at the time, and saw that in the corner, I remarked on the brutally awful paint job and the dealer told me the story and said I could have it for 500 quid.
It was still down as red on the logbook when I got it too, it was a conviction on wheels that thing.
>>4058 You're trying to convince people the MX-5 isn't a womens car, and you pick the video of the car with the marple dash and the dildo-esque gearknob.
Just kidding, it's my dream car and I'm getting one as soon as I have the money and the space.I'm also bisexual and have a large collection of silicone sculptures so maybe I'm biased though.
>I've seen a Porsche 944 for sale that's a category N write-off that I'm considering going for. On the one hand, I'd have no real idea what I'm doing and I'm not a very handy person.
While a 944 should be fairly easy to fix up compared to the modern-day computers on wheels that cars have become, if you're not handy with mechanical repairs, and, crucially, have no place to do them, then it's best to just let it be.
If we're really talking restoration and not just doing the odd brake or wishbone job, then you will just be out of your depth, and no car maintenance course will teach you everything you will need to know in any kind of acceptable amount of time. Realistically, you would almost have to train to be a mechanic entirely.
I do all my own repairs, but while I may not be a trained mechanic, I've got over 20 years hands-on experience in doing so, and know certain things about my cars better than any mechanic ever will. But again, 20 years of practical experience.
Also, people think they can get an expensive car on the cheap if they buy a run-down bucket, but that's only where problems will begin for you. You are going to have to think about how you will source all the parts (if Porsche themselves should still have new parts for a 25-year-old 944, you will probably pay through the nose to them, expect to pay hundreds to thousands on the usual wear-and-tear parts), you will have to be able to judge if used parts that you will buy are still in useable condition, and all the small and big jobs that come with getting a car back in good nick. At the end of it, as an unskilled layman, you are looking at about the same amount of money that you would have to spend on a car of the same type in good condition.
Unless you are positive you know how to remove a transmission from under a car or how to change a timing belt or the valves inside a cylinder head, it's not worth bothering about. Because any number of jobs like that will be waiting for you if the car is really classed as a writeoff.
Sorry. But this kind of job just isn't for you, OP.
