So nice! Love your setup with that color and the wheels setup...

Next car... Prob will keep the boxster and pick a 996tt to build up.

Ariel Atom all the way.

I have been dreaming about this car since its first introduced but since its pretty much cash up front to buy, its been out of my league.

To me its the perfect 'upgrade' to a Boxster. About the same price as a new 'Spyder' so its no where near F-car territory. Insane speed, great handling, jaw dropping good look, and its a 'drop top'.

There could be argument that its a track car and not a street car but IMHO its perfectly usable as a daily driver ( which my Boxster is ).

Hopefully in a year or two it will be parked right next to my Boxster.

You either are smoking something, being sarcastic, or you're 12... or combination of all 3. :D

Sports cars i've owned are
1) S2000 2002
2) NSX 1991
3) Boxster 1999 (and still have)

I drove them daily, although i had and have a practical car along with them a CRV, RX300, and now a RX330.

My budget for my next car will be sub 25K, which will get me one of the following used cars.
1) Mustang GT convertible
2) Corvette
3) M3 Convertible
4) if i'm lucky NSX-T

I found out when I Sold the S2000 for NSX that I like convertibles. I live in Hawaii so i can use it almost everyday.

If I run into a lot of money, then my list would be:
1) Ferrari 355 Convertible
2) 911 Convertible
3) Audi R8 Convertible

If i ran into an insane amount of money i would get:
1) 918
2) Murcielago (Roadster)
3) Lexus LFA (even though it's not a convertible)

Cayman S is my next sports car for all the obvious reasons. I've yet to drive one though—mostly because I know I will want one and I cannot have one.

I just can't fathom selling my sorted-out 97 for a 1/3 of what I've put into it to get it sorted. This alone will probably keep me out of a Cayman S.

I know you are .. but what am I ? LOL.

I would concede that I'll probably need a beater car for rainy season .. but living in CA this year I cant recall more than a few days of rain so far.

I'd need a beater truck anyways to haul stuff every once in a while, so that would work out perfectly .. I think. =D

I thought it was going to be a PWC, probably Yamaha or Sea Doo, but I was "veto'd" on the idea of the selling the Boxster. She tells me that we'll find a way for both.
I would probably pick up a 2-3 year old Miata, plenty enough fun and minimum maintenace. Just doesn't have the same curb appeal.

I have a deal to pick up a base Cayman tomorrow, which I knew would be my next car up. Hoping the deal goes as planned, and will soon have a Boxster for sale; if so, I'm gonna miss the top-down runs that have brought so much happiness.

Randall, when I read of your experience of buying the cheapest Boxster available (which is what I did too), only to find it was actually very expensive (I was luckier that way), I remember a song I once heard on the radio years ago, "Thousand Dollar Car."

So I just looked up the song. By the Bottle Rockets, it has some great lines. "$1000 car's life was through/'bought 50,000 miles 'fore it got to you...
Sink your money in it, and there you are/the owner of a 2,000 dollar 1,000 dollar car...If a $1000 car was truly worth a damn/then why would anybody ever spend ten grand." Classic... hope it doesn't apply to this Cayman. :eek:

Anyone here owned or extensively driven a 2000-2003 m5?

I've driven one, and was hooked. Yes, it doesn't have the agility of a boxster. Yes, it's 4000 pounds stock.

But my God did it feel great doing everything.

To me, the perfect car is the car that does everything as close to perfectly as possible. The Boxster is great, and I need to get exposure to a Carrera or Carrera S at some point, but that particular m5 was, too me, the closest thing to that.

I also think it has far better appearance and interior spacing compared to the newest m3, which is also nice.

My list of cars to try out to find which one is "most perfect" includes:

2001-2003 m5, 2005+ Carrera, 2007 Audi RS4, and a few others

To me, that's my step up from the Boxster. We'll see :)

Joe, before you decide to buy an M3 or M5, ask about the cost of maintenance. The motors are not run of the mill and require more and expensive oil, have shorter service intervals, etc.

I do love my 07 550i though. It is plenty fast for me at 5 seconds zero to sixty. I'd be scared to move that much metal any faster.

Randall,

I'm very familiar. I was a BMWCCA member for a few years and still have the dream. The boxster was a early inheritance from my father.

So, ironically, I drove a 2007 550i 6-speed sport package and found it to be far too smooth in terms of power delivery. It didn't feel that fast because it was so much of a turbine.(for what I want)

The m5 felt incredible.

That being said, it might be worthwhile for me to check out a dinan 335i (more affordable maintenance).

Well put... I kept my Boxster and "stepped up" last year to something more expensive. I very strongly considered the Ferrari F355 and the Maserati Coupe. In the end it was those $20K engine rebuilds, $2K+ wheels, expensive exhaust headers, expensive brakes rotors, expensive shocks, etc, etc, etc that pushed me away from the Italian cars. I'm more of a "mate for life" type of guy, I needed a car that I could "marry" that would be there for me (long term), work well, with few headaches or bills that require a home equity loan to pay off. I bought an '03 Carrera 4S.

http://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l1...TechArtC4S.jpg

Funny thing though is that I then replaced my Honduh beater car with a '72 Porsche 914. This thing has really just grabbed my heart. It's not great, but it's just got so much character and is so fun to drive. Plus I LOVE working on this car. The engine is hard to access, but there's not one $%^@!#* computer or CPU in the whole damn car. This is what I drive to work each day and the damn thing just keeps growing on me.

http://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l1.../CIMG6895a.jpg

Kirk