I absolutely love the car – it’s genuinely great to drive. That said, I do feel the current pricing is on the higher end for what you actually get, and that’s really the main point I personally was trying to make.
Think on the face of it, you're probably right. Egg box interior, dated head unit, not a lot of tech, only 231bhp, etc. Most people would sniff at that even for £30k.
On the flip side, that's kind of missing the point...it's a genuinely fun RWD sports coupé with an NA engine, manual gearbox, and LSD, weighing less than 1300kgs. An actual affordable lightweight sports car. And a 10 year warranty. Can you think of any other new cars that match the description at the same price? The only one that springs to mind is an MX5, which is great, but comes with it's own compromises (much smaller and harder to run daily). Other "attainable" lightweight sports cars like the Alpine A110 or Lotus Emira ended up being much more expensive.
Granted you could buy something older with a much nicer badge, interior and more power for less money if you go second hand...but then that argument will
always apply to
everything you buy second hand. So in my head, if you're going to compare cars fairly, you really need to consider them at their RRP.
Anyway, welcome to the forum. Hope you enjoy the car. I'm sure you've got a lot of big mods planned, but I thought I'd suggest a few smaller quality of life ones first...ones that are cheap and easy to do yet round off some edges nicely:
- Change to a lighter clutch pedal spring, and adjust the pedal lower. Absolute game changer to sort out that weird feeling clutch engagement.
- Upgrade the transmission mount to the stiffer STI variant (OR, just use a Whiteline poly insert in the existing one, although that's noisier). Improves shift feel.
- Whiteline differential mount poly inserts. Improves shift and throttle feel a bit.
- Change the steering rack bolts to longer STI ones. Makes the steering a tad more direct and feel some....only a small improvement, but for me this sorted the only downside I felt the GR had compared to the GT. And easy to do with the car off the ground.
- Tucked behind the glovebox trim somewhere is a plug for the fake engine noise. Unplug it. It's bloody awful, and I imagine you'll have a new exhaust lined up as one of your first mods anyway (we all did
).
As you used to own a GT86 you might already recognise some if those. The platforms really are identical in a lot of areas, so if there's anything you did to your old car that you liked, chances are you'll be able to do it to the new one too. Enjoy!
). 
