SuperNad's 5 car garage - S2000, F-Type, GR Yaris, Fiat 500L
Discussion
I thought it was about time (time being something we all have plenty of these days) to do a bit of a write up about my current 5 car garage. I never intended to have so many cars at the same time, but it seems to have gradually happened despite the wife’s increasingly mild protests. She’s either given up or embraced it – either way, it’s happened!
My current garage consists of:
2006 Honda S2000
2014 Jaguar F-Type V8 S Convertible
2021 Toyota GR Yaris
1969 Fiat 500L
2007 Lexus RX350
As a 29 year old, my car history isn’t particularly lengthy. My first car was a 1998 Ford Fiesta 1.25 Zetec with manual windows, no airbags, no A/C, and no CD player. It did, however, have a peppy engine, very little weight and a manual gearbox which was all I needed! Like most Ford products of that era, rust killed it off and it was replaced with a 2006 1.4 Fiat Grande Punto. I always thought these were good-looking cars and I kept this car for four years after picking it up for £1900 in 2012. It was written off in 2016 by a L-plated 125cc rider who was too busy fiddling with his gears to look up before ploughing into the rear of me as I made a slow, indicated right turn into my own street. Thankfully I was given £1600 for it so the car ended up being an absolute bargain to own and run.
Just before the Punto was killed off, I bought myself a car that I had dreamt of for years, a 2005 Honda S2000 – it was utterly fantastic in Silverstone Silver with the red/black interior. I loved it whilst I had it but it soon became my only car and I started to fall out of love with the harsh ride on long commutes with little opportunity to engage VTEC regularly. I bought it for £10,000 and sold it 6 months later for £9,990 – not too bad I guess!
I was desperate for something cheap and comfy to commute in and naturally my attention was drawn to Volvos. I found a leggy, tired 2002 S60 with the 2.0T 5-cylinder petrol engine up for sale at a dodgy second-hand car dealer near my work priced at £1000. The bodywork was tired, the heated seat never worked and the woeful geartronic gearbox often would fail to engage drive – BUT – it was exceptionally comfortable and a proper barge – I paid £800 and took it anyway. Again, I loved this car but I soon started to realise it would quite likely not pass its next MOT and sold it on for £500 to a Lithuanian guy who arrived in to the UK the day before and needed a cheap runabout. I’ll never forget trying to navigate mini-roundabouts and multi-storey car parks with great difficulty in that thing.
With a crippling fear of maintenance costs and an even longer commute starting soon, I had 2 years in a painfully dull, but utterly brilliant base model 2016 Audi A6 2.0TDI Ultra. I put 24k miles on it in its first year and it would happily return 60mpg and burn its way though AdBlue faster than a coke addict would work through the white stuff. As it was a lease deal, it was specced without options and it even had a manual gearbox – unthinkable these days on executive saloons (it definitely would have better suited an auto though).
Having categorically decided not to do another lease deal, naturally I signed up for another lease deal when the Audi S4s were up for sub £400pm. I picked up a 2018 Audi S4 with the 3.0T V6 in Misano Red and what a fantastic car this was. I never loved it but it is still, in my opinion, undeniably one of the best all-round cars you can get. 40mpg on the motorway, 0-60 in 4 point-something seconds and super comfortable with all the tech you want without being needlessly complicated. I sometimes miss it and I may consider an Avant version at some point but there’s enough other stuff about to not go back twice.
At some point in 2017, I felt the time was right to rekindle my love affair with the Honda S2000. I missed that 9,000rpm rev limit, the VTEC switchover pushing you on, and the sweet feeling of its manual gearbox. A lovely 2006 Indy Pearl Yellow one came up for sale on AutoTrader, but it was in bloody Northern Ireland as the previous owner had traded it in for a special edition white one. I was set on it, I had to have it…so I flew over to Belfast from Southampton Airport, picked it up from a lovely independent dealer right next to Lough Neagh. I spent the Saturday afternoon driving it down to Dublin, with the widest smile on my face – I still remember genuinely laughing out loud the moment I first felt the VTEC switchover again. After having a lovely dinner with my friend in Dublin, I set sail to Holyhead that same evening and managed to get a little bit of sideways action in on wet roundabouts prior to checking myself in for the night at a Travelodge in Bangor. The next day was one of the best days I can recall….
My current garage consists of:
2006 Honda S2000
2014 Jaguar F-Type V8 S Convertible
2021 Toyota GR Yaris
1969 Fiat 500L
2007 Lexus RX350
As a 29 year old, my car history isn’t particularly lengthy. My first car was a 1998 Ford Fiesta 1.25 Zetec with manual windows, no airbags, no A/C, and no CD player. It did, however, have a peppy engine, very little weight and a manual gearbox which was all I needed! Like most Ford products of that era, rust killed it off and it was replaced with a 2006 1.4 Fiat Grande Punto. I always thought these were good-looking cars and I kept this car for four years after picking it up for £1900 in 2012. It was written off in 2016 by a L-plated 125cc rider who was too busy fiddling with his gears to look up before ploughing into the rear of me as I made a slow, indicated right turn into my own street. Thankfully I was given £1600 for it so the car ended up being an absolute bargain to own and run.
Just before the Punto was killed off, I bought myself a car that I had dreamt of for years, a 2005 Honda S2000 – it was utterly fantastic in Silverstone Silver with the red/black interior. I loved it whilst I had it but it soon became my only car and I started to fall out of love with the harsh ride on long commutes with little opportunity to engage VTEC regularly. I bought it for £10,000 and sold it 6 months later for £9,990 – not too bad I guess!
I was desperate for something cheap and comfy to commute in and naturally my attention was drawn to Volvos. I found a leggy, tired 2002 S60 with the 2.0T 5-cylinder petrol engine up for sale at a dodgy second-hand car dealer near my work priced at £1000. The bodywork was tired, the heated seat never worked and the woeful geartronic gearbox often would fail to engage drive – BUT – it was exceptionally comfortable and a proper barge – I paid £800 and took it anyway. Again, I loved this car but I soon started to realise it would quite likely not pass its next MOT and sold it on for £500 to a Lithuanian guy who arrived in to the UK the day before and needed a cheap runabout. I’ll never forget trying to navigate mini-roundabouts and multi-storey car parks with great difficulty in that thing.
With a crippling fear of maintenance costs and an even longer commute starting soon, I had 2 years in a painfully dull, but utterly brilliant base model 2016 Audi A6 2.0TDI Ultra. I put 24k miles on it in its first year and it would happily return 60mpg and burn its way though AdBlue faster than a coke addict would work through the white stuff. As it was a lease deal, it was specced without options and it even had a manual gearbox – unthinkable these days on executive saloons (it definitely would have better suited an auto though).
Having categorically decided not to do another lease deal, naturally I signed up for another lease deal when the Audi S4s were up for sub £400pm. I picked up a 2018 Audi S4 with the 3.0T V6 in Misano Red and what a fantastic car this was. I never loved it but it is still, in my opinion, undeniably one of the best all-round cars you can get. 40mpg on the motorway, 0-60 in 4 point-something seconds and super comfortable with all the tech you want without being needlessly complicated. I sometimes miss it and I may consider an Avant version at some point but there’s enough other stuff about to not go back twice.
At some point in 2017, I felt the time was right to rekindle my love affair with the Honda S2000. I missed that 9,000rpm rev limit, the VTEC switchover pushing you on, and the sweet feeling of its manual gearbox. A lovely 2006 Indy Pearl Yellow one came up for sale on AutoTrader, but it was in bloody Northern Ireland as the previous owner had traded it in for a special edition white one. I was set on it, I had to have it…so I flew over to Belfast from Southampton Airport, picked it up from a lovely independent dealer right next to Lough Neagh. I spent the Saturday afternoon driving it down to Dublin, with the widest smile on my face – I still remember genuinely laughing out loud the moment I first felt the VTEC switchover again. After having a lovely dinner with my friend in Dublin, I set sail to Holyhead that same evening and managed to get a little bit of sideways action in on wet roundabouts prior to checking myself in for the night at a Travelodge in Bangor. The next day was one of the best days I can recall….
Sunday morning arrived, and the plan was to get from Bangor, North Wales down to Hampshire that evening. The sun was out, the roads were clear with it being mid-November and best of all, it was just me, myself and I to look after. There is no better way to learn and bond with a car than spending a day driving it across Wales with all the time in the world and no-one else to worry about. What a wonderful day it was, and I survived unscathed and without a speeding ticket. I’ve had this car ever since, and it is the only car in my garage that I never intend to sell. I use it for Sunday morning drives with the Propulsion club, track days a few times per year and it gets the odd run out for my commutes if the weather calls for it. I have even taken it to the Nürburgring with my father as I went on a short road trip which included the Frankfurt Motor Show, the Porsche factory tour in Stuttgart and the Michael Schumacher Private Collection in Cologne. A further trip was planned in 2020 for Spa and the Nürburgring but obviously this didn’t happen in the end.
In the meantime, I was engaging with a local car enthusiasts regularly across Hampshire and Sussex and I met a friend of mine who owned a lovely Jaguar F-Type V8 S Convertible. He had (and possibly still has) one of the worst attention spans when it comes to cars – he’d often buy one, keep it for a few months, get bored, and then move it on. I dread to think how much he’s spent doing this. Anyway, I saw the F-Type was put up for sale and as my wife had always mentioned how much she likes them, I suggested we could go and see it. One press of the start button and I think she was sold. We’ve had this car for 2.5 years now and it has been magnificent. The thunderous supercharged 5.0 V8 is a stunning engine and the car itself has been surprisingly reliable and not-hideously expensive to insure and maintain. The Pirelli P-Zeros it came on were a liability in the wet but the Michelin PS4S it wears now make the car much more predictable. We were lucky enough to take the car on a trip to Lake Garda in 2020 when the Covid cases were at their lowest and I am so happy that we did so as the roads were spectacularly quiet, the sun was out and the people and places were so warm and welcoming. This car was perfect for a grand tour apart from the tight luggage space…it even averaged a properly calculated 28mpg!
At the start of 2020, I was getting close to pulling the trigger on a new Civic Type-R. It ticked a lot of boxes for me, and whilst I wasn’t 100% sold on the looks, I didn’t dislike them either. I have always appreciated Honda’s engineering history and I felt the pricing and residuals wasn’t too bad on these but COVID-19 hit in March and I decided to hold back on the spending and just get a cheap and reliable comfy car for daily runabout use. Why spend £33k on a car to use and abuse when I could spend £4k and feel more financially secure at the same time? I picked up my 2007 Lexus RX350 in April 2020 just before the price of used cars seemed to escalate. I wanted reliability, comfort and potentially a car I could just run until it died so a Lexus made sense. I decided against the hybrid version as issues with the battery can get costly and it uses a CVT gearbox. My wife now loves this car and it is just utterly brilliant apart from the VED cost and the 24mpg fuel consumption. It does however share its engine with the Lotus Exige and doesn’t sound half bad when you floor it!
I think boredom started to settle in whilst I was unable to work for 3 months last summer and I started to get way too excited about classic Fiat 500s. My heart started to rule my head on this one and I ended up overspending and picking up a car which was sold as better than it actually was. It was sold as a good restoration, but it turns out a fair few bits on it were put together wrong and it’s not been the smoothest experience so far. I picked it up in Northampton and spent 5 hours driving it back down to the south coast using an old map and back roads. It was a liberating, fun and downright terrifying experience at times. I’ve never owned a car which gets so much positive attention (when I’m not holding people up on B-roads struggling to do 50mph!). So far, the car has taught me a lot about basic car mechanics and I have enjoyed replacing parts and fixing things bit-by-bit. My plan for the summer is to get it running reliably and look to maybe sell it on. With potential kids on the way, I just can’t see the car getting used enough to justify sticking around.
![](https://thumbsnap.com/sc/4Aqz3p3g.jpg[/img]</a> <a href="https://thumbsnap.com/mRTpEwbw" Target="_blank" rel="nofollow">[img]https://thumbsnap.com/sc/mRTpEwbw.jpg)
I’ve been very lucky though this pandemic as my finances have remained largely unaffected. With more and more hype coming out about the Toyota GR Yaris, my curiosity and desire increased over time. It made much less sense as a family car than the Civic Type-R for the same money but the part of me that respects over-engineered cars couldn’t help but become enamoured with the development pathway of the Toyota. A car that isn’t particularly cheap but still feels cheap when you consider the likely cost of making the damn thing a reality. The day the reviews were all published, I called up my local dealer and placed an order straight away. I picked up the little beast two weeks ago and it still needs a bit more running in before I get to really enjoy it but first impressions are brilliant. It feels so compact, light and wonderfully frenetic. It really encourages you to push on in a way where it feels almost illegal. I can take so much more speed into corners than I would dare to in my Honda S2000 for fear of oversteer. It somehow makes sense in my garage and I guess I’ll find out over the next year or two whether it’s a keeper or not. I have a feeling I’m going to love it but I’ll always have one eye on a 911 down the road…
In the meantime, I was engaging with a local car enthusiasts regularly across Hampshire and Sussex and I met a friend of mine who owned a lovely Jaguar F-Type V8 S Convertible. He had (and possibly still has) one of the worst attention spans when it comes to cars – he’d often buy one, keep it for a few months, get bored, and then move it on. I dread to think how much he’s spent doing this. Anyway, I saw the F-Type was put up for sale and as my wife had always mentioned how much she likes them, I suggested we could go and see it. One press of the start button and I think she was sold. We’ve had this car for 2.5 years now and it has been magnificent. The thunderous supercharged 5.0 V8 is a stunning engine and the car itself has been surprisingly reliable and not-hideously expensive to insure and maintain. The Pirelli P-Zeros it came on were a liability in the wet but the Michelin PS4S it wears now make the car much more predictable. We were lucky enough to take the car on a trip to Lake Garda in 2020 when the Covid cases were at their lowest and I am so happy that we did so as the roads were spectacularly quiet, the sun was out and the people and places were so warm and welcoming. This car was perfect for a grand tour apart from the tight luggage space…it even averaged a properly calculated 28mpg!
At the start of 2020, I was getting close to pulling the trigger on a new Civic Type-R. It ticked a lot of boxes for me, and whilst I wasn’t 100% sold on the looks, I didn’t dislike them either. I have always appreciated Honda’s engineering history and I felt the pricing and residuals wasn’t too bad on these but COVID-19 hit in March and I decided to hold back on the spending and just get a cheap and reliable comfy car for daily runabout use. Why spend £33k on a car to use and abuse when I could spend £4k and feel more financially secure at the same time? I picked up my 2007 Lexus RX350 in April 2020 just before the price of used cars seemed to escalate. I wanted reliability, comfort and potentially a car I could just run until it died so a Lexus made sense. I decided against the hybrid version as issues with the battery can get costly and it uses a CVT gearbox. My wife now loves this car and it is just utterly brilliant apart from the VED cost and the 24mpg fuel consumption. It does however share its engine with the Lotus Exige and doesn’t sound half bad when you floor it!
I think boredom started to settle in whilst I was unable to work for 3 months last summer and I started to get way too excited about classic Fiat 500s. My heart started to rule my head on this one and I ended up overspending and picking up a car which was sold as better than it actually was. It was sold as a good restoration, but it turns out a fair few bits on it were put together wrong and it’s not been the smoothest experience so far. I picked it up in Northampton and spent 5 hours driving it back down to the south coast using an old map and back roads. It was a liberating, fun and downright terrifying experience at times. I’ve never owned a car which gets so much positive attention (when I’m not holding people up on B-roads struggling to do 50mph!). So far, the car has taught me a lot about basic car mechanics and I have enjoyed replacing parts and fixing things bit-by-bit. My plan for the summer is to get it running reliably and look to maybe sell it on. With potential kids on the way, I just can’t see the car getting used enough to justify sticking around.
I’ve been very lucky though this pandemic as my finances have remained largely unaffected. With more and more hype coming out about the Toyota GR Yaris, my curiosity and desire increased over time. It made much less sense as a family car than the Civic Type-R for the same money but the part of me that respects over-engineered cars couldn’t help but become enamoured with the development pathway of the Toyota. A car that isn’t particularly cheap but still feels cheap when you consider the likely cost of making the damn thing a reality. The day the reviews were all published, I called up my local dealer and placed an order straight away. I picked up the little beast two weeks ago and it still needs a bit more running in before I get to really enjoy it but first impressions are brilliant. It feels so compact, light and wonderfully frenetic. It really encourages you to push on in a way where it feels almost illegal. I can take so much more speed into corners than I would dare to in my Honda S2000 for fear of oversteer. It somehow makes sense in my garage and I guess I’ll find out over the next year or two whether it’s a keeper or not. I have a feeling I’m going to love it but I’ll always have one eye on a 911 down the road…
Edited by SuperNads on Sunday 21st February 16:24
Nice right up and nice collection of cars you have there matey.
I have a similar problem with the wife every time I mention cars and we only have 3 :big laugh:
Those Yaris’ really are getting a lot of hype, seems there is still a yearning for semi-analog cars in the market, was there much of a waiting list?
I have a similar problem with the wife every time I mention cars and we only have 3 :big laugh:
Those Yaris’ really are getting a lot of hype, seems there is still a yearning for semi-analog cars in the market, was there much of a waiting list?
5mileofdeath said:
Nice right up and nice collection of cars you have there matey.
Those Yaris’ really are getting a lot of hype, seems there is still a yearning for semi-analog cars in the market, was there much of a waiting list?
Thank you, it was quite fun to write it up!Those Yaris’ really are getting a lot of hype, seems there is still a yearning for semi-analog cars in the market, was there much of a waiting list?
I ordered mine in early November and got it within 3 months but I know others ordered theirs not long after I did and still need to wait 2-3 months longer. Each week waited seemed to add a month to the delivery date.
It's so odd as it seems the hype is entirely online as no-one on the street cares it exists but online the demand is strong. That works for me though as I've never bought a car for attention. Maybe once it appears on Top Gear people will realise it's an interesting little car!
Edited by SuperNads on Sunday 21st February 19:54
SuperNads said:
Thank you, it was quite fun to write it up!
I ordered mine in early November and got it within 3 months but I know others ordered theirs not long after I did and still need to wait 2-3 months longer. Each week waited seemed to add a month to the delivery date.
It's so odd as it seems the hype is entirely online as no-one on the street cares it exists but online the demand is strong. That works for me though as I've never bought a car for attention. Maybe once it appears on Top Gear people will realise it's an interesting little car!
Nice and interesting selection of cars you've got especially the S2000 for me as I've got one and the GR Yaris cause I like hot hatches, especially homologation specials. Your S2000 looks great in yellow.....one of my favourite colours for them.I ordered mine in early November and got it within 3 months but I know others ordered theirs not long after I did and still need to wait 2-3 months longer. Each week waited seemed to add a month to the delivery date.
It's so odd as it seems the hype is entirely online as no-one on the street cares it exists but online the demand is strong. That works for me though as I've never bought a car for attention. Maybe once it appears on Top Gear people will realise it's an interesting little car!
Edited by SuperNads on Sunday 21st February 19:54
I think that just like the homologation specials of the past, not everyone is going to get
the GR as they are built for driving enthusiasts so performance is always going to be a priority over practicality or anything else. Most people won't be able to justify it where practicality is compromised plus the fact that there are many other good and more practical options within the price range.
The S2000 is now in the modern classic category and I believe the GR has all the ingredients of becoming a future classic also which will always be appreciated by enthusiasts.
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