Faced with the daughter’s impending start at University in September and thus my impending need to fund around £500-£600 a month to support her living costs there, I’ve decided to sell my beloved TVR Griffith, which I have owned for 29 years to help with the finances. It’s going to hurt like hell parting with it as I have loved and cherished that car like no other and it’s undoubtedly one of the finest examples of a pre-cat TVR Griffith in the country.
If the TVR is going then the GT86 daily has to go too, because I really want to have a convertible drivers car in the house and the GT86 is a superb car to drive, but has a hard roof. I want the missus and I to continue to enjoy epic country drives at the weekends (currently the TVR offers this) so I need to replace both the GT86 and TVR with a single car that fulfills both purposes. The MX5 is the obvious choice.
I had no idea how good the MX5 actually is until I drove one for the first time last weekend. The tiny cabin is just so beautifully designed and they’ve done a fabulous job of evoking the feel of classic British sports cars with chrome rimmed gauges, faux leather and the painted metal door tops and a wonderfully small curving windscreen. It’s just so cosy and I could imagine Mrs G and I heading off on a load of road trips and adventures in the next few years in one of these. No it isn’t quite as epic as the TVR, it doesn’t sound like a Merlin engined Spitfire as it thunders across the countryside and it doesn’t have the utterly explosive way of hurling you at the horizon that the TVR does on full reheat, but it still feels special.
Looking around the market for a nice one it struck me that the finance on secondhand is so much worse than on new, that buying a lightly used 3 year old example actually results in higher monthly payments than buying a new one! I’ve never owned a new car and my wife is keen that if I’m to let my beloved TVR go, that I get a brand new MX5 to replace it. The savings on running, taxing and insuring the TVR and GT86 plus my daughter’s car which is going too, more than covers the £329 a month on PCP.
I’ve got another test drive in an MX5 booked for tomorrow and they’ve offered me what I feel is a sensible trade in on the GT86 against it.
I’ve always wanted to tour the Scottish highlands and if I had an MX5 I wouldn’t think twice of doing so, but in a 33 year old TVR you do have to consider venturing that far afield. Similarly I have always wanted to drive across the Alps to Italy or Switzerland and again the MX5 feels like it would open up these possibilities and adventures to us more easily. It’s not just about reliability either because in truth we drove around Wales in the TVR a couple of years back and it didn’t miss a beat. It’s also about things like air conditioning, lighter controls that my wife can operate, better fuel economy (40mpg in an MX5, 20mpg in a TVR - and half that if you’re trying!)
I’m curious how many others on here have swapped a classic British sports car for the MX5 and what your experience has been like?
JonathanG
