[Perfectlap]

Originally Posted by black_box

Miata's on the other hand, will be more fun on the track and on the road if you stay legal (because you can actually drive them at 10/10ths), cost 1/4 as much to buy and even less to maintain with all the parts available.

Exactly what I ended up buying when I first gave serious though to buying a Porsche. For the grand sum of what my Boxster Fabspeed exhaust alone runs I instead bought a Miata project that cost peanuts to upgrade and maintain. Hmm... whole car that is a fixture at track days and autocross or an exhaust minus the whole car? Tough choice. But difference was I didn't need to drive my toy car every day. Had that been the case I probably would have gone with an older Japanese car. Some of those like the Civic Si and MR2 are very reliable and make for capable autocross/track cars with better crash-worthyness than the Miata. If I were in that position today, I'd probably go with an S2000. Most mechanics can work on them, they don't have complicated preventative maintenace like a Boxster, they're a fairly rare car and with that type of engine, it can run for decent fuel economy in normal traffic.