VW GTI ?

These sort of postings always amuse me. So, have you ever owned either of the two lovely old classics you mention? And done much commuting in them? Thought not...

When you've got to travel 30K+ miles per annum your perception's somewhat different!

Most of us are swayed by the local dealerships. For myself, I've no problem with our local VW dealer, it's just the cars that are the problem in comparison to the Audis we've owned. Similarly, our original LR dealer was great and it's only because LR, in their wisdom, decided they didn't need a main agent in the county town of Suffolk that moved me over to Honda (I've a CR-V).

The local BMW and Merc dealers are pretty dreadful so I'll not be giving them any business.

From my post...."If I was truly into cars and had the mechanical wherewithal to maintain them I would probably buy..."

Reading and comprehension - often useful in combination. Clearly one wouldn't commute in either and personally speaking I would never commute in a car in any case.

So, you're not "truly into cars" but choose to pontificate on something you seem to know little about? 

I see...

At least two other people on the thread like Caterhams. Expecting many votes for the Audi A1?

I own a car. It is a dull modern box just like yours. I used to be able to part-rebuild an engine. Qualifies me to hold a personal view on cars.

To be honest, it is nice to get views from people who don't currently own a particular product as sometimes those who do cannot see the wood for the trees. This amp I own is the best ever amp etc...

I confess I've never owned a Caterham. But I've owned one of these :-

Great fun but not for commuting. I've also built a fair few engines and transmissions, so what? I wonder how many folk on here own Audi A1s? I know what I'd prefer to drive nowadays.

These sort of postings always amuse me. So, have you ever owned either of the two lovely old classics you mention? And done much commuting in them? Thought not...

I did 18,000 miles in my Caterham over a few years, and owned a Triumph Stag as my only car 20 yrs ago and did 45,000miles in it in less than 2 years. I've owned an Elise as my only car over 2 hard winters. I've also owned and run rather duller Euroboxes of various sorts too.

Oh and and commuted in an MGBGT for 3yrs. Rubbish car!

Bruce

Yes, that were right grand! I could get used to being driven about...

Bruce, I owned an Elise for a couple of years too. - 

Good fun but a right PITA for doing any distance in.

..and a real laugh in the snow

Not so much as my TVR! 

TVR's can't handle rain let alone snow.  Such lovely cars though.

I massively preferred my first caterham (1.6vx) to the Elise it replaced.  The second was very much better

I'd agree. The Elise was great about 20% of the time but the Caterham was special every time you drove it.

The Caterham had better build quality too-my own fair hands!

Bruce

I think one of the major reasons I preferred the Caterham(s) was that they were noisier - I do wonder if a sports exhaust on the Elise might have made it more fun.  However, I think the handling on the Caterhams was much more friendly, and mending a bent Caterham would always be much cheaper than an Elise.

My only experience with a Caterham was a half hour passenger ride around out local country side, amazing handling braking etc but I felt like I'd been in a tumble drier.

Still it saved me money as I don't want one anymore.

MX5 is exciting enough these days, and in comparison relaxed travel. 

Within reason i felt I could push the Caterham to its limits (and a smidge beyond) in wet and dry. I never fancied crossing that line in the Elise.

One of the main reasons we sold the Caterham was that my wife really hated it. She was usualy cold and wet, generally deafened and felt pretty unsafe. The driver had all the fun.

A couple of years back my Mother needed a new car so came to me for help.  We drew up a shortlist and narrowed it down to two, with a joker thrown in for fun; the two were the new Audi A1 and the VW Polo.  The joker in the pack was a BMW Mini. 

So we arranged a day to go and see and test drive the candidates and here things became rather interesting.  The first arranged drive was the Audi A1.  Things didn't go well.  The sales staff seemed to evaporate as soon as we stepped into the showroom.  If they did appear they were all on mobile phones.  We had an appointment and the slightly panicked girl on the desk asked us to take a seat and wait for someone.  We waited.. and waited.  Eventually I got up to ask the girl whether we could look at the A1 in the showroom to get a feel for the interior.  Yes, no problem, but she would have to get one of the sales people to come and unlock the doors.  Eventually someone did turn up and plipped the locks but immediately vanished again.  The interior was very nice indeed, Mum really liked the look and feel of the car but the test drive would be important.  So we waited some more...  After 45 minutes of waiting (we did manage to collar one sales person who hurriedly talked about the car but vanished as soon as I mentioned we had a booked in test drive half an hour earlier) we walked out.  Nice car though the A1 seemed, Mum had totally gone off the idea of having to deal with the garage in question.  I agreed.  No way.  As we stepped into my own Audi to drive to next appointment, I felt somewhat ashamed at my own choice of car.  Way to go...

So, on to the VW dealership.  Here they were much more helpful.  They were most keen to get my Mother into one of the pre-registered cars on the forecourt.  It had obviously been sat there a while without a clean.  Inside it was very nice but nowhere near as special as the A1.  The price was very similar too.  No chance for a test drive today though as they were short-staffed.  Very sorry.  OK, they tried hard, and overall the attitude was so much better than at the Audi garage down the road but it felt a bit like buying a dishwasher from Currys. 

So off we went, feeling like the day had so far been a bit of a failure.  However, there was still the joker to play.  Mum had rather dismissed the Mini but I had arranged for us to just drop by and take a look anyway.  Perhaps we were lucky, but immediately we were made to feel very welcome.  The salesman was great - he and Mum got chatting straight off and I could see that she was really enjoying the whole experience.  I left them to it and went off to do some shopping.  When I came back over an hour later there was no sign of Mum anywhere.  She and the Salesman were out in one of the demonstrators.  They had gone for a very long drive and when they did eventually return Mum looked like a child who had just had their first go at the funfair.  She loved the Mini, thought the garage was fun and the salesman brilliant.  OK, so the boot was pretty small, and overall the options really add up, but for her it had to be the Mini.  She had fallen in love with the whole Mini experience.  2 years on she still loves the Mini and even looks forward to the time when it has to go for a service - particularly because it's free for 5 years.

I do look back and wonder whether the choice may have been different had the Mini dealership been more like the Audi one, and vice versa....

I had a similarly awful experience at an Audi dealers in Victoria. Zero service, salesmen on phones instead of attending to customers. We walked out, muttering (loudly) that they mustn't want our money. A guy chased us into the parking lot apologising, but it was too late. Felt good.

If you get a chance, take your mum on a tour of the Mini factory in Oxford. I really neat insight.

I owned a Sprite and a Lotus Elan +2 at the same time. The Sprite was there when the Lotus was being fettled - an all to frequent occurence.

The Sprite was a model of reliability and economy.

The friend of mine who had the cricket ball dent the roof of his X5 was loaned a Mini convertible for 4 days while they repaired his car. Told me he would have been quite happy to keep it for longer,said it was a fun little car to drive.

Mista h

Hmm..

Your neighbour's dog must be something special.

Interesting re Mini, Richard - talking to a colleague the other day who is working on various BMW marketing campaigns, incl. Mini it was clear that although target marketing was at young, post-uni females the majority of sales were going to independent women "of a certain age." Her words, not mine - albeit in German, and my translation. Round here, it seems that the initial target market are either in Fiat 500s, on pushbikes or work for BMW and seem to be in 1-series or above. Of the mini drivers in our street, most are women of 50 years +. They do seem to be expensive, but if you can afford it worth the fun