I made a topic not long ago about basically being bored/unhappy in my job. So, I've decided now I want to take up a new hobby. So far I have 2 things in mind - each have their own advantages and disadvantages. I'm looking for advice from people who have real world experience in either of the 2 possibilities or can provide another good suggestion as to what my new hobby could be. My ideas so far are these:

1. A car for use at track days / hillclimb events / autocrossing
2. A buggy / quad for offroading.

I'm not looking at karting so please don't suggest it, thanks.

In terms of budget, I don't really have a fixed amount but probably in the region of £5-10k. This would be to include buying a vehicle, towbar, (braked) trailer for it and all the required safety equipment. My tow vehicle would be my S40 which has a rated braked towing weight of 1400 kilos and a rated unbraked towing weight of 700 kilos. At the moment I'm not sure where I'd store anything I buy so unless I can come up with something my plans might not get off the ground. If I do get a track car, though, assume that it would have to be parked on the road so I'd have to buy tax and insurance for it (plus I'd have to get trackday insurance whenever I wanted to use it) which may be a hassle if I decide to make any modifications to it.

So, how many track car / buggy / quad owners are there out there with some real world advice or suggestions for me?

Thanks in advance.

Bmw E30 for a track car. I'm not sure how available they are in scotland though. They are quick. light, rwd/4wd, fun and inexpensive.

I have a quad. Its a 08' Yamaha Raptor 700R SE. Its an extremely fast quad. I use it most, if not all weekends and the odd days in the week, blasting it around the fields by my house. Overall, its an extremely fun machine, and i love it to bits.

If you decided to go for a quad, i would recommend it as it is a fantastic machine, although i would advise getting something lower than a 700CC, as im rarely able to use the quad to its full potential, so a lower cc version may help with running cost's and what not.

As for a track car, i have a mini which has been fully race prepped and has had a Honda K20A2 (fyi, the engine found in the current Civic type R) which has then been turbocharged. Its an extremely fun machine. It has only been on the roads a few times, but obviously, its not cut out for that. I dont know how much it would be for you to buy one like this, but i have seen some with a stock 1.6 civic unit in still going for £10k which are race prepped, so these may be a little out of budget. I think something like a old style elise could make a good track car, and im pretty sure you could pick one up for less then 10k. If you want something that you can thrash the nuts off of at a track, but then still drive home in comfort with, then i would definetely reccomend something along the lines of a Mitsubisi Evo, E36 M3 or maybe a Seirra Cosworth (sapphire would be cheaper tbh). There are lots of track monsters you can buy for £5 - £10k, but it all depends on what you want. Light, small engine and nippy, or medium/large size, but with montrous power...

Question - Do you have a full motorcycle licence? If so, then a motorbike might be a good idea. Even for £5k, you could buy a really nice bike, the equipment/tax/insurance and still have spare change left over. If you do have a full motorcycle licence, then i would seriously reccomend getting one, as they are fantastic, and can kill most cars on track, even smaller engined ones.

Track days and speed events (hillclimbing or sprinting) are the cheaper options and you can do them in an unmodified road car (though for speed events it has to be standard to be exempt from having safety modifications to the car).

Track days are probably the best place to start unless you want a competitive drive because you get a lot of time for your money compared to hillclimbing, which is about as expensive as motorsport gets on a cost per mile basis. Any hatchback or reasonably sporty saloon should be fine for the first few track days and the cost of track days at good circuits (Silverstone, Donnington etc.) typically only about £250 for a (weekend) day or £125 for a (weekday) evening session. If you want something a bit more nimble and don't want to take the risk of putting your everyday motor on the line you could look at getting something like a 205, Golf, E30 or MR2, all of which would be good track cars and convienently have been raced extensively in road legal spec so you could pick up a fully prepared car in reasonable condition with all the safety modifications needed for racing and hillclimbing but still realistically able to drive it to events and remove the logistical issue of a trailer and park it on the street just like any other car. You could do this with something more substancial if you wanted to, there are several Minis, a nice mk2 Escort and a 924 that live outside near me in this kind of hillclimb/track day spec.

Autotesting is cheap but very hard on cars, you're much more likely to end up with expensive repair bills and generally age your car quicker by doing autotests than trackdays.

an alternative to this is buying something like a land rover defender and going propper off roading

i recently got an A reg series III for £800, cheap, and it was in good nic, just the few odd repairs. we take it on pay and play days wich at where i am, is £30

Quote from Nathan_French_14 :

Question - Do you have a full motorcycle licence? If so, then a motorbike might be a good idea

I was going to ask the same thing... if you're not interested in a streetbike, then fair enough, but if you've not really considered it much, then DO A huge amount of fun... I am so hooked on riding now that I haven't been and raced my car in autox more than a handful of times in the last two years... And I was planning on doing a trackday in my car, but instead I've done one on the bike and the next one I'm planning is for the bike too...

I personally own a Honda TRX450R. That's hell of a quad but unless you are used to play with engines I wouldnt recommend it to you. This quad is competition oriented but it's really fun for trails and all. Cheaper than a Raptor 700R, a bit slower (around 120km/h for a 450R when the Yamaha raptor goes to 130-140 STOCK) but it's much better for jumps and stuff like this.

If you most was to go in trails and you got some money:

Yamaha Raptor 700R
Honda TRX700R (Thats a real trail quad, not a competition quad)
Polaris Outlaw 525S (Also available with independent rear suspension if you want a more comfy ride)
Suzuki LT-Z400 (smaller and cheaper tha anything above but almost as fast and its a real tank. I had one for 2 years always runned in the cutoff and it was still running like a charm.
Honda TRX400EX (about the same than a Z400 except its air-cooled. They are given nowadays so ou can easily find a good one at low price).

I could name them all lol. Maybe try to be more precise so I can help you on the quad side.

Edit: Heres what mine you look. I was in a race federation for 2 years but now I decided to take my summer for other projects.

Thanks for the replies so far guys. I don't have any sort of bike license and I've only ridden a 125 before - that was enough to tell me a bike isn't my thing

If you have a car license, you dont need anything else to ride a quad!

Quote from Riders Motion :

If you have a car license, you dont need anything else to ride a quad!

Yep, I've got a full UK (car) license, had it for about 6 years, so I'm definitely qualified to ride quads. I've only had a few experiences with quads before, probably ridden them about 10 times or so. The 2 most memorable were in Wales and East Kilbride respectively. In Wales, my brother, dad and I all went on a course with some pretty big quads. Don't know how big the engine was but they had 5 speed boxes and we got up to an indicated 50mph on a pretty narrow farm trail. Went through water splashes, up and down steep hills etc. Lots of fun. Then Calderglen Park in East Kilbride. It had been raining earlier that morning so the grass was pretty slippy. We were having fun powersliding but I caught a patch of less wet grass, suddenly found some grip and got thrown off a couple of feet from the quad, which rolled onto its back and landed just beside me.

Well quads are really safe if you know how to ride them. If you're too scared of a big quad you could get a 300cc too.

ford seirra, even a diesel will give you all the laughs you need, cage strip and safety gear and your away, a e30 is a good choice also but i honestly wouldnt have the heart to abuse one in that fashion...

Quote from amp88 :

We were having fun powersliding but I caught a patch of less wet grass, suddenly found some grip and got thrown off a couple of feet from the quad, which rolled onto its back and landed just beside me.

If at all possible, make sure the quad always lands beside you rather than on top of you I joke, but there have been a few quad fatalities in my town over the last few years. Much more than dirtbike fatalities, primarily because of the extra weight involved I guess.