What’s your daily driver? (If your GR is your weekend toy)?

GRMatt74

Totally Hooked
Dec 22, 2023
508
924
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Bedford
I’ll start.

2.0l Corolla GR Sport for me.

Bought it new 1 1/2 years ago. Nice car. Brilliant mpg if driven right. Pretty quick in sports mode although the auto box is a bit of a letdown. Essential for the hybrid system though unfortunately.

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This works very well for us. As the GR is realistically a 2 seater, it gives us plenty of flexibility, and can carry larger items with no problem, and also reasonable economical. View attachment 24379
Are these not a theft magnet?

We got an auto Tiguan as my OH doesn't drive manual, I do use it regularly for the convenience vs the GR86 but may need a cheap runabout (had a 09 corsa that filled this spot)
 
My main car is the GR86, but since I don't commute, it means pretty much all journeys in it are non-essential. I don't forsee myself parting with it any time soon.

The daily driver my missus uses is a Fiesta 1.0 Ecoboost. It's an all around decent hatchback that has low running costs (40 mpg, £0 tax, cheap insurance and service parts), so it is doing its job well as a cheap daily.

It might prove just a tad too small for our puppy as he gets older, so we may need to swap that for an estate of some form in the future (which would be far more practical for other things). That's when the man-maths in my brain is trying to justify a BMW 530d Touring, or a Skoda Octavia VRS Estate lol.
 
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Depending on mood/where I need to go/what I need to carry; Twingo 133 Cup and Hyundai i30N

Twingo is the best £4k I've ever spent, took the silly mods off when I bought it, uprated the entire braking system and generally just use it like any Renaultsport should be.... i30 is a recent acquisition, wasn't even looking at one but it just popped into my radar and took the plunge. I'll only mod the exhaust, the rest can stay stock.
 
A Citroen C1 - extensive experience of these (which are an Aygo underneath) when I was working at a Citroen dealership.

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Nothing really goes wrong, save for clutches (which are an easy and cheap fix), the engine is unburstable, £0 RFL and you really do have to drive like an idiot to drop below 50mpg. Cheap to insure, too.

I put 20k per annum on it doing the boring, running around stuff and commuting in it. Ideal for leaving in the station car park, yet polishes up okay and looks reasonable.

The only downside is that it’s rather slow, and other drivers do try and bully you in it (well, when driving in the south east, anyway).
 
A Citroen C1 - extensive experience of these (which are an Aygo underneath) when I was working at a Citroen dealership.

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Nothing really goes wrong, save for clutches (which are an easy and cheap fix), the engine is unburstable, £0 RFL and you really do have to drive like an idiot to drop below 50mpg. Cheap to insure, too.

I put 20k per annum on it doing the boring, running around stuff and commuting in it. Ideal for leaving in the station car park, yet polishes up okay and looks reasonable.

The only downside is that it’s rather slow, and other drivers do try and bully you in it (well, when driving in the south east, anyway).

My missus has a 17 plate Aygo. She had a 14 plate before that.
Toyota keep hassling her to upgrade to an Aygo X but like you the £0 ved is worth keeping the car. It only has 34k miles on it. It’s mint too.
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When I’m not using the GR tend to use the wife’s little Panda Cross it’s noisy, not very fast
and the driving position could be better but it’s economical and has locking diffs and great
suspension so will go anywhere in any weather and has bags of character so in a way it’s a drivers car 😂

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In the summer if we have one I love my little Lotus 🥰

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A Citroen C1 - extensive experience of these (which are an Aygo underneath) when I was working at a Citroen dealership.
[snip]

Nothing really goes wrong, save for clutches (which are an easy and cheap fix), the engine is unburstable, £0 RFL and you really do have to drive like an idiot to drop below 50mpg. Cheap to insure, too.

I put 20k per annum on it doing the boring, running around stuff and commuting in it. Ideal for leaving in the station car park, yet polishes up okay and looks reasonable.

The only downside is that it’s rather slow, and other drivers do try and bully you in it (well, when driving in the south east, anyway).
I overlapped for a month with the GR and a 107 (since sold), joked that I owned one Toyota and it wasn't the one with the Toyota badge.

They really are one of the best cold hatch's out there, rust took mine in the end but chucked nearly 100k miles on it (with the stock clutch, too) with little resistance otherwise. Super fun to throw around the back roads, just overtaking is a pain.
 
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My daily (15,000 kilometres per year) is an Abarth 595C Pista. Quick enough for such a small car, unfortunately very uncomfortable standard seats for my body when sitting in it more than half an hour. Thus thinking of replacing it. I want something with:

- amiable engine sound
- sufficient power (0-100 kph around 7 seconds or lower)
- involving drive
- open top
- ideally manual transmission

This reduces the choice significantly. Currently undecided between MX-5 ND G184 and M240i.

If I am honest the MX-5 is that bit too small for two people and a dog of 40 cm height when all of them need to be in the car at the same time. MX-5 has the benefit of manual transmission, engine revving to 7.5k, Japanese reliability, more involving drive, light weight.

M240i would make more sense (in a certain "Man's logic" way so don't ask) but I was shocked how awful the suspension of this car is at high speed corners. I don't know whether it is related to the electric steering, the weight of the car or the suspension components but long sweeping Autobahn corners at around 180 kph plus felt quite unsettling. I felt more insecure through such corners than with my Abarth where I know the car is not made for these corners by design (too narrow, wheelbase too short, torsion beam rear axle) but the Abarth tackles these corners like a terrier with a death wish and so far I have survived all of them (corners and terriers). Very strange. Could be solved with aftermarket components on the BMW, I read. And yes, the 240 has a - to my understanding of speed - very capable straight line performance but acceleration felt quite unemotional because power is always there (due to maxium torque at already 1600 revs), thus the power did not feel very special. Very strange again.

Perhaps you have more ideas about the right car for me as the next daily? But I don't want to hijack this thread for my special taste in cars.