How to have fun on four wheels for less

This is a strange time to be a car lover or a driving enthusiast.

The conversation throughout the automotive industry is so dominated by talk of self-driving cars and electric vehicles that it sometimes feels as though our modest little hobby is under attack.

And yet, you might even say there’s never been a better time to be a petrolhead. The trackday culture in the UK and across Europe is more vibrant now than ever before and new track-ready cars seem to arrive every other week. Meanwhile, old track-ready cars can be picked up for buttons. It has never been easier to get involved in grass roots motorsport and if you are prepared to travel just a little, our little island is home to some of the best driving roads in Europe.

The automotive landscape is changing around us, but there is still plenty of room to play. This is your guide to having fun on four wheels without breaking the bank:

Buy a trackday car

No traffic jams, no speed bumps, no HGVs, no tractors, no speed camera vans in hidden lay-bys, no cyclists and, of course, no speed limits. Race circuits are just about the only place you can really wring a car out and a suitable chariot can be yours for just £1000.

Renaultsport Clio 172 – from £1000

That Porsche 911 GT3 RS might well come flying past you every five laps, but the satisfaction will be all yours. After all, your entire trackday car cost you less than the price of a set of tyres for the RS. And if you suffer a mechanical failure or misjudge your line into Quarry corner and gently interface with a tyre barrier, you’ll simply laugh it off.

Bargain basement trackday driving might just be the most entertaining sort. The car that ignited Renaultsport’s hot hatch hegemony in the modern era has the kind of edgy handling balance that’ll keep you laughing all day long.

Toyota MR2 - from £2000

It is a very particular set of attributes that makes a car suitable for track driving. Sharp and responsive handling, a good chassis balance, durable brakes and all the rest of it. The point is, it simply doesn’t matter that the third-generation Toyota MR2 looks quite a lot like a frog sitting on a lily pad.

At less than 1000kg the dinky roadster is unusually light, while the mid-engine, rear-wheel drive layout is perfectly suited to the race track. £2000 really is nothing at all for a purpose-built sports car and you’ll find many examples in decent condition.

BMW 330Ci E46 - from £4000

In standard form the 330Ci isn’t really cut out for track work. It’s a little heavy, a tad roly-poly. But with a zingy straight-six up front, perfect weight distribution and rear-wheel drive it does make a brilliant starting point. Popular upgrades include coilover suspension (at less than £700 the Bilstein B12 Pro-Kit is a very good option), sticky tyres, bucket seats and harnesses and a locking differential.

There are serviceable cars out there for as little at £2000 if you like the idea of starting from scratch, but for £4000 you should be able to find a car that’s already been track prepared.

Caterham 7 - from £10,000

Burning through tyres and brake pads does mean the cost of track driving can build up. This is where extremely lightweight track cars come in, because at no more than 600kg a Caterham 7 simply doesn’t seem to use consumables. The other advantage of Caterham’s flyweight sports car is that it holds its value remarkably well.

So well, in fact, that £10,000 will only stretch to a 15 or 20 year old car (although that hardly seems to matter when the basic 7 design is more than half a century old). These cars are weekend playthings so there are lots of low mileage examples out there.

Buy a competition car

Once you’ve had your fill of trackday driving you’ll want to progress to actual competition. In fact, having sampled the thrill of wheel-to-wheel racing for the first time you will never bother with trackdays again. Racing cars needn’t be expensive, but entry fees and running costs can add up.

MSV Trackday Trophy - from £2000

MSV’s Trackday Trophy was conceived as a bridge between trackdays and motorsport. It is as straight-forward a transition from one to the other as you will find anywhere. If you already have a trackday car you will probably be able to race it; if you do not, suitable cars can be found for around £2000. Think Mini Cooper S, Renaultsport Clio 182 and Honda Civic Type R.

The races are 45 minutes in length and are shared between two drivers, which means you’ll be racing with a buddy. Reckon on a full year costing between £2000 and £3000, on top of the cost of the car.

750MC Locost - from £3000

The 750 Motor Club’s Locost championship is so deliberately geared around affordability that it even says so in the name. The tyres, for instance, cost £35 each and will last a full season. The Lotus 7-style cars are lightweight, fun to drive and just about perfect for honing your race craft in.

You’ll find second-hand Locost cars for £3000 while a full season should cost roughly half that. The club holds 17 Locost events each year, all double or triple headers, on the UK’s best circuits. The series even travels overseas with Spa-Francorchamps featuring on the 2018 calendar.

Citroën C1 - from £3500

The C1 Racing Club was formed as a spiritual successor to the Citroën 2CV series, where running costs had begun to escalate. The club says a Citroën C1 can be bought and race-prepared for less than £3500. Once built, the little C1 racing car is more fun to drive than you would ever believe.

The calendar is made up of 19 rounds, mostly in the UK with a handful of trips onto the continent. It features three 24 hour races, too, a brace of them at Rockingham and another at Spa-Francorchamps. Little wonder the nascent series is proving so popular.

Formula Vee Championship - from £5000

Now more than 50 years old the Formula Vee Championship is a stalwart of the affordable motor racing scene. It demonstrates that single-seater racing isn’t just for fearless young bucks and the super wealthy, too.

With mechanicals lifted from original VW Beetles the cars weigh not much more than 300kg, meaning the 100bhp air-cooled 1300cc engines are plenty powerful enough. Another 750 Motor Club series, Formula Vee races seven times a season with all rounds being double headers. Cars can be found for just £5000 and each weekend will cost no more than £350 in entry fees.

Buy an off-roader

Green-laning is like driving off-piste. You are technically on the public highway, but those highways just happen to be unpaved. Sometimes the lanes are gravel tracks that are easily traversed, but often they are thick with mud and water baths, rocky inclines and narrow passes. You’ll need a 4x4…

Suzuki Jimny - from £2000

Originally launched way back in 1997 the third-generation Suzuki Jimny is only just now being replaced. It’s like a mountain goat - not a whole lot bigger, but every bit as capable on rough and muddy terrain. Last year we tested one alongside a Range Rover that cost ten times the price - there were places the little Jimny could go that the big Rangie couldn’t reach.

All the Jimny really needs to turn it into the perfect green-laning machine is a set of all terrain rubber. £2000 is a healthy budget for a 15-year-old Jimny, too.

Land Rover Discovery - from £4000

Discoverys have become popular among the green-laning fraternity because they’re supremely capable away from a paved road in standard form, as well as being cheap to buy. There are plenty of cars kicking around this sort of budget, both Series One and Two models with the very leggiest Series Threes starting starting to drop within reach.

A set of all terrain tyres will get you to the end of most green lanes, but lots of owners find themselves upgrading over time. Cheap differential guards and recovery points (think heavy duty towing eyes) are popular modifications, but anything more is probably overkill.

Jeep Wrangler - from £6000

Land Rovers and Suzuki Jimnys are the darlings of the green-laning crowd, so you’ll stand out when you turn up in a Jeep Wrangler. Our friends across the Atlantic swear by them, though, and even without the enormous off-road tyres and massively uprated suspension that are so popular Stateside, the Wrangler is capable in the rough stuff (although a two-inch lifting kit at around £600 will do wonders).

There are far fewer Jeeps of any sort here in the UK than Land Rovers, but at £6000 you won’t be short of options. The six-cylinder 4-litre petrol is the engine to have.

Land Rover Defender - from £7000

The Land Rover Defender is one of only a handful of cars that can genuinely be described as iconic. With production having finally ended in early 2016 they're in ever increasing demand, which means you could buy one today, spend a year or two exploring the countryside around you, then sell it for what you paid, if not more.

At £7000 you will be looking at a car that’s 15 or even 25 years old, but if it’s been looked after and serviced regularly it should keep on trucking. Rust can be a problem, though, all the way through to the ladder frame.

Buy a summer sports car

Our roads may be more congested than ever, but unless you live within the shadow of Big Ben itself there will almost certainly be a quiet B-road within 30 minutes of your house. A sweetly-balanced drop-top sports car on a sunny day will reignite your passion for driving.

Mazda MX-5 - from £2000

Death, taxes and Mazda MX-5s being talked up as the only bargain roadster you’ll ever need. Yes, this isn’t exactly the first time Mazda’s little sports car has made a list like this one, but until there is another car that matches the MX-5’s blend of fun, affordability and availability it will continue to happen.

With your £2000 budget you won’t exactly be the biggest fish in the MX-5 marketpond, but you will find a good selection of first and second generation cars. Tidy examples will hold their value if you look after them.

Porsche Boxster - from £4000

It’s a poor man’s Porsche. No, it’s a hairdresser’s car. Quite why the Boxster has been so maligned over the years is anyone’s guess, but all you really need to know about Porsche’s mid-engined roadster is that it’s great to drive and not at all expensive to buy.

It is a purpose-built sports car, too, based on a platform that was designed from a clean-sheet to be an entertaining driver’s car. Not even the BMW M3 E46, let alone the Audi TT, can claim that. Problems? Intermediate shaft bearing failure and leaky rear main oil seals are the biggies.

Honda S2000 - from £6000

The Honda S2000’s handing balance can be a little, well, unforgiving at times, as many owners who’ve found themselves sitting in a field, muddy tyre tracks criss-crossing towards a hole in the hedgerow will attest. They aren’t inherently dangerous; they simply need to be treated with some degree of respect.

Besides, your ears will be so full of that glorious inline four spinning away at 9000rpm that you simply will not care that you’ve just binned your sports car. The F20C engine is known to use oil, which means some will have been run perilously low.

Alfa Romeo Spider (2006-2010) - from £8000

‘Sweetly-balanced’ may be a stretch, but the Brera-based Alfa Romeo Spider still has plenty to recommend it. A sweet and soulful V6, for one thing, although there are so few six-cylinder examples out there you might just have to settle for the zesty four-pot. At least the car looks very pretty in a not-quite-exotica sort of way.

Avoid the diesel, which just isn’t appropriate for a topless sunny day car. And what of Alfa’s reliability reputation? Lots of owners report many happy miles of trouble free motoring and there are no commonly occurring horror stories.

Getting the most out of your trackday car

Before you start worrying about upgrades, and certainly before you ever venture out of circuit, you should make sure your car is in a healthy state. That means ensuring all fluids are at the appropriate level, checking that the suspension isn’t on the brink of collapsing, the brake discs and pads aren’t hopelessly worn out, the exhaust is firmly attached and the tyres have at least some life in them. All of that is especially true if you’ve bought yourself a cheapo trackday snotter.

Soon enough you’ll want to make some upgrades. The first thing you will notice is that the car’s standard brakes simply aren’t up to the task. Better pads and fluid will improve their durability and reduce your frustration. Braided hoses will improve your stoppers even further. EBC offers a full brake upgrade kit with grooved discs, pads, fluid and hoses for the Mazda MX-5 for £252.

You’ll be looking at tyres next - perhaps a set of Avon ZZRs - and coilover suspension, too. Bilstein offers uprated springs and dampers for a wide range of cars at around £600 a set. Long before you begin worrying about engine power you should look into a pair of bucket seats and harnesses. Being properly clamped into the car will make a bigger difference than any power upgrade.

Manufacturer experiences days

The car makers in question view it as a bums-in-seats exercise, but to you and I it’s just a chance to hoon about in somebody else’s car. Porsche and Mercedes have both built experience centres here in the UK in recent times, Porsche’s being at Silverstone and Mercedes’ at Brooklands in Surrey. In both cases the facilities have handling tracks and low-grip drift circles, while the Porsche Experience Centre also has a kick plate, which basically flicks you into a spin unless you’re quick enough with the corrective lock.

You’ll spend anything from an hour to a full day driving the car maker’s latest performance cars, all the while being encouraged to push both yourself and the car ever further. These experiences start at around £200, but you can spend £1000 or more.

Manufacturer experiences days

If you really want to make some noise without being labelled a liability, though, you need to book yourself onto one of Caterham’s drift days. You’ll pay £275 and spend several hours learning how to slide a Caterham 7 through cones and around obstacles. It is very possibly the most fun you can have at the controls of a motorised vehicle.

Grassroots gatherings

You needn’t buy a whole new car to exercise your passion for all things automotive, of course. You may already own the car of your dreams, but even if you’re stuck driving a wholly uninteresting company car or family wagon for the time being you can at least use it to convey you and a mate to one of the countless motoring events that happen right across the UK. There are the two big annual events at Goodwood, naturally, but while the Festival of Speed and Revival do now cost a fair whack to attend, the occasional Sunday Scramble at Bicester Heritage will set you back not much more than the cost of a pint of beer, and the same goes for the Sunday Services from our colleagues at Pistonheads.

What started as a ‘cars and coffee’ get together in 2014 at the former RAF airbase has grown into one of the most diverse car meets in the country, with 1000 classics from right across the spectrum on display and thousands of punters pouring in to ogle them. The cars and coffee thing is really coming to life in the UK. A quick online search will find one such event near you, be it an official event by Cars & Coffee - originator of the idea - or one of many copycat events.

Where to drive

When in search of great driving roads, head for the hills. As is so often the case around the world the UK’s best roads are found twisting their way through hills and mountain ranges. Snowdonia, the North York Moors and the Yorkshire Dales boast some of the best stretches of tarmac and the lightest traffic.

The most breathtaking corner of the entire country, however - both in terms of the roads you’ll find there and the scenery that surrounds them - is the northernmost tip of Scotland.

North Coast 500

The North Coast 500 (pictured) was conceived by the North Highland Initiative three years ago to drive tourism. Starting in Inverness in the east it cuts across the width of the country to the spectacular west coast before turning north.

The stretch between Applecross and Lochinver takes in some of the most breathtaking views and the very best roads you’ll find anywhere. And sparse vegetation means good sightlines for safer driving.

North Coast 500

The 500 mile route skirts right across the very northern tip of the country - you actually feel as though you’re driving on the edge of Earth itself (pictured) - and reaches its most distant point at John O’Groats, before slicing back down Scotland’s east coast. You could do it in a couple of days, but you’ll wish you gave yourself four or five.