You would be very lucky to find half decent MK1 Astra GTE for £500 as they are getting more and more sought after. A lot of the cars suggested are certainly not hot hatches!
<quote>8 valve Mk2 Astra GTE was my first thought, I haven't looked into it but I would imagine the valvers are sought-after as engine donors...</quote>
As for the MK2 Astra 16V GTE...great cars in my opinion but you will not find a good one for £500 unless the owner doesn't know what they have. Scrappy ones go for their engines and parts....cheap ones will have rust and probably a lot of it. However, you can pick up an 8V GTE in fair condition for £500. They are not slow and if you did want to get them up to a 16V performance it is not all that difficult on a budget. Parts are readily available and cheap. Another alternative is to go for a MK2 Astra SRi. Very similar enigne to the 2.0 8V but a 1.8 and still quite nippy. You will pick up a much clener example of an SRi for £500 than a GTE (on one of the forums a quite tidy one was going for £90). All the right things are then in place if you did want to gain power and drop in a 2.0 8V lump. The 8V lump will go on forever if looked after.
You could pick up a Mazda 323 GTX Turbo 4X4 for £500 if you shopped around. Getting parts is not fun though, but they are very fun indeed, especially on the twisties!
The old civics (was it the 1.6 B6 or something engines?) are pretty revvy and under-rated but not very hot I guess.
<quote>8 valve Mk2 Astra GTE was my first thought, I haven't looked into it but I would imagine the valvers are sought-after as engine donors...</quote>
As for the MK2 Astra 16V GTE...great cars in my opinion but you will not find a good one for £500 unless the owner doesn't know what they have. Scrappy ones go for their engines and parts....cheap ones will have rust and probably a lot of it. However, you can pick up an 8V GTE in fair condition for £500. They are not slow and if you did want to get them up to a 16V performance it is not all that difficult on a budget. Parts are readily available and cheap. Another alternative is to go for a MK2 Astra SRi. Very similar enigne to the 2.0 8V but a 1.8 and still quite nippy. You will pick up a much clener example of an SRi for £500 than a GTE (on one of the forums a quite tidy one was going for £90). All the right things are then in place if you did want to gain power and drop in a 2.0 8V lump. The 8V lump will go on forever if looked after.
You could pick up a Mazda 323 GTX Turbo 4X4 for £500 if you shopped around. Getting parts is not fun though, but they are very fun indeed, especially on the twisties!
The old civics (was it the 1.6 B6 or something engines?) are pretty revvy and under-rated but not very hot I guess.
