Hopeful new owner with track day intentions!

Good evening guys and girls.

So I persuaded the wife to let me have a track day car providing it's cheap....really cheap. Had a few options in mind like a MG ZS 180, Clio 172 etc etc.

Then I remembered my mums 1.7 puma and how much I loved driving it. The handling, the noise and the feel of the thing......I loved it more than she did!

After a quick look on eBay and gumtree and seeing how cheap these fantastic little things are, my minds made up about what I want. I'm currently overseas serving with the forces but at the end of this year/start of next, I'll be back in the UK and on the lookout for a sub £500 Puma that I can start my project.

Anyway. Have been lurking for a few weeks and read some great threads, hopefully will gain a lot of advice from here.

Welcome, just picked a cheap one up myself for the same purpose. Already love the little thing

no such thing as a cheap track day car

welcome to the forum

welcome to the site! good luck with your project!

Find something cheap, recent MOT and put some decent tyres on it and brakes and go hoon

Getting a puma on track for sub 500 is fairly easy, but budget for insurance and road tax (unless you intend to be trailer queen), standard front seats are dire to point of being dangerous if you drive car anywhere near it capabilities.

they lack a bit of power on straights, but that does increase fun factor for corners and it gives that added incentive to avoid loosing any momentum and carry as much speed through corners as possible. A cheap clio 172 is quicker but more expensive and more fragile.

Biggest costs is getting to track, cost of trackday and fuel.

I usually book Travelodge or the like night before unless doing brands hatch (which is 20 mins drive away) as prefer to have something to eat and 5 mins drive to track in morning rather that worry about roadworks, traffic delays and arrive tired and knackered at beginning of day.

If you do Cadwell can highly recommend The Paddocks B&B in Scamblesby, breakfast is amazing and will cook as early as you like :grin:

Not sure where you are based but Bedford is a really good starter track, avoid airfield trackdays, they are cheap and a hoot, but it's cones everywhere, totally flat and cost of tyre wear/damage will more than negate the savings over a proper trackday.

Most fun track is Cadwell IMHO but get some experience first elsewhere so you can really enjoy it as is twist, steep in places and track is narrow so you need to be extra aware of what is coming up and getting past others compared with somewhere like Snetterton.

Like the op I'm also looking at a puma, my list was also the Clio, zs180, mg zr160 and possibly a 2.0 Zetec mk1 Focus as you can pick very tidy ones up for less than a puma. But we owned a 1.7 from new in 2000 for 10 years and loved it. So I'm also looking at Pumas, the space in the Focus is slightly more appealing though.

Thanks for the friendly welcome guys.

I'm not planning on having the car on the road, so won't have to worry about tax/MOT/Insurance. I'll hire a trailer each time to take it to a track (no more than £50 a day, sometimes less) or find a cheap one to buy. The main reason I chose the Puma over anything else is the weight. Without a B+E licence there are a load of rules I have to adhere to (trailer and car are not allowed to be heavier than the tow car and max MAM can't be over 3500kgs)

So basically a car without an MOT isn't too much of a problem. It won't be driven on the road so I can be brutal about what stays and what goes.

Although I'm a car nut through and through (Used to race endurance Pro Karts for the RAF) and I've been on track a few times with gift experiences (including palmersport at Bedford......amazing) I'm not the most technically gifted and don't have a abundance of tools at my disposal.....or even a garage! So I'm going to buy stuff as I go along and looking at threads in here with step by step guides on how to do things, hoping to learn a few things along the way!

Hi guys
If your looking at a non road going car, just get the cheapest RUST FREE example you can find.
Brakes, bushes, engines, gearboxes will all be serviced and swapped anyway, so a solid shell is a good base
The strip/build is half of learning the game...

You might want to check your towing allowance on your license.
I might be wrong, but I thought you were limited to 750kg without the trailer test.
You wouldnt want a pull from the law, or worse, a bump, and lose the lot!

Good luck on track, Stu..

You are right Stu, but there is an exemption:
(Copied from the DVLA website)

If you passed your car driving test between 1 January 1997 and 18 January 2013, you can:

drive a car or van up to 3,500kg MAM towing a trailer of up to 750kg MAM

tow a trailer over 750kg MAM as long as the combined MAM of the trailer and towing vehicle is no more than 3,500kg

So with the weight taken out of the car I reckon it may be just under a ton? Then 500 kgs for your average twin axle trailer leaves me with a 1500 - 2000 wt limit for the tow car.

Mr Red Barron said:

So with the weight taken out of the car I reckon it may be just under a ton? Then 500 kgs for your average twin axle trailer leaves me with a 1500 - 2000 wt limit for the tow car.

Click to expand...

That discounts all large 4x4s except the new Range Rover. For example the old Discovery is 2100kgs, Shogun is around 2200 and they only get heavier as they get newer. A Vitara might just be up to the job but I'd get an auto or the clutch will be toast in no time.

you want a Mondeo as tow car

Thinking of an Audi Allroad or a Volvo XC70. Got to do a bit more research on tow cars though.
How easy is it to work on the Puma? I know there's no Haynes manual but would it be easier say working on a MK5 Fiesta Zetec S? Or are they pretty much identical?

The Haynes manual for the Fiesta also covers Puma, as apart from anything body related, and 1.7 engine stuff, they are identical, it's number 3397.

Get a van, then you've got space for all spares and tools etc.

Any transit or trafic will do the job.

It'll be used as our second family car so unfortunately a tranny is not an option. I struggled to get the wife to agree to a track car......I'm pretty sure it'll be mission impossible to get her riding around in A transit!! Lol