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Can you recommend a sporty estate for my wife's business and a mid-engined sports car for me?

I have been struggling to find a balance of cars in our garage. Our current cars are a 12-year-old Range Rover converted to LPG and a modified 55 plate Audi S4 V8. The latter satisfies my need for speed and my part-time car touring business, but is mainly used by my wife for work (lucky girl). And we use the Range Rover for very rural living and driving in the Highlands, winter conditions and for towing a large trailer. I drive a small van otherwise. What we need is a more economical but sporty estate for my wife's business travel (about 18,000 a year) and I would like to buy a mid range, mid-engined sports car (Alfa 4C?) with hopefully some luggage space for the touring, and keep the Rangie for emergencies. I'm struggling with the estate I'm afraid and keep coming back to the S4, which I love to bits. Help.

Asked on 21 January 2012 by MB, Duror, Argyll

Answered by Honest John
For the wife, the recently facelifted SEAT Exeo ST 2.0 TDI CR 143 should do the business at around 50mpg. But don't bank on keeping it longer than three years and then you should avoid the problems that modern diesels start to develop. For you, difficult. No chance of an Alfa 4C without paying a ridiculous premium for being one of the first to get one. You might as well go for what it's copied from: an Elise / Vauxhall VX220, and I’ve seen a new Opel roadster being tested on the roads of Bavaria. If an Elise, make sure it has the Toyota Motor. Or follow Steven Sutcliffe and put your name down for a Ginetta G60 which he rates much more hard core than a Porsche Cayman R (see Autocar 26-10-2011).
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