Scottish Elises

A few months ago I moved to Athens and had to buy two cars, I have now bought both and before I pick up the second tomorrow and reveal my garage I wondered if anyone can guess my cars...?

The Criteria:
- A car for me and one for the wife (No kids, no dogs and no immediate plans for either)
- I drive 3 miles to work each day in heavy traffic
- My wife occasionaly goes shopping
- We should be able to swap cars
- We will sometimes have visitors so at least one car should have 4 seats and a boot
- Combined budget of about £30k.

The cars:
- Combined I have 430bhp, 11 cylinders and 5.8l of displacement.
- One is mid engined rear wheel drive
- Both are petrol
- One has a paddle shift gearbox
- Only one is normally aspirated
- Neither are convertible
- Neither are particularly practical...

My car history includes a MINI, 3 Series Compact, 2x E46 M3's, Elise and an Exige S, My wife has had a Cooper S and a TT, Quite a few Germans...

Any ideas?

C65 AMG and V5 Golf?

I am thinking 3-cyl forced induction with paddle shift mid engine - bound to be something like a smart or a VAG car in that configuration, making maybe 100bhp. Let's say it's a 1.0 litre.

That leaves 4.8l of N/A V8 making around the 330BHP mark. Has to be something American to be so rubbish. Say something like a corvette?

Cheers,
Robin

Hmmm

The narrowest clue to me is mid engined, so I'll go for a Cayman of sorts. Perhaps with PDK to cover the paddles. This also fits with your German history.
That leaves a presumably turbo charged engine with 5 cylinders, so perhaps something using Audis 2.5 TFSI engine like an Audi TT RS? Again German. Although appreciate you can't get a 3.3L (to get to your total of 5.8l) Cayman..... unless there is some rounding!

3 cylinder 800cc turbo Smart car...not sure of HP which leaves 5 litre V8 manual gearbox and I reckon the Smart'll be semi- auto/paddle type change.Smart will be 2 seater.....forgotten the guidelines now!!

Some interesting suggestions. Ferg that's a couple too many cylinders!
German theme is the right direction, neither are American Robin
The Quality of roads here are pretty shocking, anyone would think the government have no money... A Porsche would be an impractical choice

i would be going with either a TTRS/RS3 (which is too much power to make the 430 numbers work out) or if you are sensible back to the proper 5 bangers and a urQuattro/S2/urS4/urS6 or more likely a 10v or 20v five banger. which is going to be a 2.1 to 2.3 range, unless it stroked to a 2.4-2.5?

with 430bhp that leaves an i6/V6 with about 200-250 bhp which is could be anything! given the S54 love i would pipe for an i6/boxer6 so I would stab a guess at a boxster/auld 911 based on your car history... say 2.7- 3.4 and the numbers feel about right to me!

Kenny, who you working for in Athens if you don't mind me asking?

The total number of seats may help/confuse some more

Old smart was 700cc-ish 60bhp ish. So that leaves 5l-ish and 370BHP ... E90 M3 V8?

unless you have one of the new ford ranger 3.2 5 bangers as a commercial vehicle?

Kenny has the in-laws over this week so obvioulsy busy- I'll give another clue to keep this going;

Total of 9 seats between the two cars.

Someone is pretty close already but not quite there....

So that's a 5 & 4 seater....or maybe a 7 & 2?

Smart Coupe and BMW X5?

It can't be a 700cc Smart car, as there's no 5.1 V8 anything.

However, there are plenty 1.0 3-cylinder options, but I still like the Smart as it ticks off paddles, rear engine and rear drive.

That leaves 4.8l, V8 with only a 350bhp, which must be the 650i/750i lump. I guessed 650i until the 9 seats clue, which had me starting again, but you can get that lump in a X5 7-seater, so I'm going with that.

EDIT: Or 550i touring with a 7-seat option? Does that exist?

EDIT AGAIN!: Holy crap, the new ForFour has the engine in the back!!! Right, ForFour and a 650i. Sorted!

EDIT AGAIN AGAIN: No, wait, the 6 series is a 4-seater, so it must be a ForFour and a 750i. This is killing me.

EDIT AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN: No, nobody under the age of 140 wants a 7-series. It's a ForFour and a 550i. Final answer. Maybe...

ONE MORE: 750is outnumber 550is about 3 to 1. Play the odds. ForFour and a 750i.

graeme wrote:...I still like the Smart as it ticks off paddles, rear engine and rear drive.

But it's not rear engine, clue says mid engined That's why I dismissed the Smart, even though my bhp is waaay over in my guess . I feel you may have another edit coming on.