The Boxster/Cayman... buy a second hand 996.
The Boxster and the Cayman in particular are far more concentrated as sportscars than the standard 996 ever was. They are also mid engined and are therefore much better balanced. The price bit is obvious, and can be made against almost all new cars, considering that there are second hand bargains lurking around everywhere.
*Prepares to get shot in the face... McLaren F1 it goes 250+MPH... and?
The McLaren F1 was something never seen before. Many people thinks that the goal of the F1 was to be the fastest ever roadcar, but it wasn't. What Gordon Murray, Ron Dennis and Peter Stevens set out to create was the ultimate drivers supercar, something, if you look more closely, it still is.
The approach Murray had when he designed the F1 was unique, as he started with a clean sheet of paper and a driver, and then built everything around the driver. The F1's specifications was also as driver friendly as possible, he wanted a natuarlly aspirated engine for the best possible driveability and response, as turbocharging would make it rather unpredictable and laggy. But the really impressive thing was that in a car that fits into the "footprints" of a 993 Turbo or a tha same size as a Cayman is that says more; They managed to get seating for three occupants, their luggage, 90 litres of fuel and a 6-litre V12. Everything in the F1 is driver focused, and actually unlike most other mid-engined supercars the F1 is fairly practical as the visibility is good due to the central driving position, and fairly thin pillars. Tiff demonstrated all of it's practicallity very well on Top Gear, many years ago when it was new. The F1 is not just a brilliant supercar, it's also a masterpiece of design packaging.
The engine is a very interesting bit, lot's have been said about it, some even claiming that the
McLaren F1's BMW V12 engine is based on the one found in the 8-series and was destined to go into the projected M8 in a detuned version, so it's time to kill an internet myth again:
The McLaren F1 engine is nothing like the engine they had in the 8-series, or planned for the M8. It shares the number of cylinders but that's where the similarities stops. It was specially made for McLaren, and shares more with their straight sixes from the M3 and M5, than the S70 V12 from the 8-series. The planned M8 had a normal 8-series V12 engine with new DOHC 48v cylinder heads (Called S70/1), the F1-engine was a brand new construction from scratch loosely based on R&D from the E-34 M5 engine (Despite similar sounding names; S70/2 for the F1 and S70/3 for the LM) Looking at it you will se the heads and the block from the McLaren F1 engine looks like it has a lot in common with the straight six that later found it's way into the E36 M3.
Let's take the short, short story from the start. The first manufactor McLaren did some developing with was Honda, they were to make a 450hp engine, based on F1 R&D. The reason why Murray asked Honda first was becuse he had worked with Honda delivering engines for the TAG McLaren F1 team after the turbo engines was banned (This was the turbo engine they used in their F1 car earlier,
TTE P01;
Tag Turbo Engines Porsche 01). But then the Bugatti EB110 and the Jaguar XJ220 came along, both with a hefty 100 hp more than planned for the F1, this seemed silly with a car that exspensive. So they demanded a 5,3-litre minimum and over 550hp, then Honda would need to develop a brand new engine from scratch, which was out of question.
During the Hockenheim GP in 1990 Gordon Murray met his old mate Paul Rosche from when he worked with Brabham in F1 who asked him about how his supercar project was going, Murray answered that he was just missing an engine and time was starting to run out. Then Roshce invited Murray to Bayern to see the S70/1 from the M8-project. Murray made it clare once he saw it that it was much too big and far too heavy. So then Roshce said they'll make a new engine, and told Murray to instruct the M-Sport engineers closely about what he wanted from it.
After three weeks Murrays demands from the engiene was clear, 550hp+ and 7500 rpm redline, no more than 250kg and for the love of god, no more than 600mm long. It also had to be stiff enough to serve as a stressed member, and it needed to be dry sumped. This was in November 1990, and by christmas 1991 the engine was ready. But it turned out to be 16 kg heavyer than Murrays demands, which he unexpectedly ignored because the engine was a lot more powerfull, 627hp, so it was it was in percentage twice as more powerfull than heavyer than Murrays original demands by a rate of 14 to 6,5 against.
My source is the
"Driving Ambition - The official inside story of the McLaren F1" by Doug Nye, Ron Dennis and Gordon Murray himself, so it should be reliable...
Last summer CAR had a supercar celebration feature with amongst lots of other features an interview of Gordon Murray, where he was asked what he would have done differently with the car if it would be made today. He's answer was that he couldn't think of enyting he would like to change if he would engineer it from scratch again today.
I hope that cleaned it up regarding the F1 at least.