Best Sports Cars for Under £30000

Everyone likes the idea of owning a sporty little number. As well as being far more fun to drive than a dull family box car, catching your reflection in shop windows is the only way to while away a traffic jam.

But proper sports cars are super expensive, right? Not necessarily. Confused.com has found a selection of sporty gems that will give you a buzz without leaving a hole in your wallet.

Best for seat-of-your-pants thrills - Caterham 7

OK, so there’s a little bit of cheating involved here. The Caterham 7 is the definitive, stripped-down sports car, in more ways than one: it has the bare essentials, some models don’t even have a windscreen, but the upshot is you get spectacular performance and handling for a relatively modest outlay.



The snag is, unless you pay extra, you have to build it yourself. But with the cheapest versions starting at £17k, you won’t find more fun for your cash anywhere else.

Best for everyday use – Ford Focus ST

Don’t be fooled by the familiar body shape, the Ford Focus ST is a real wolf in sheep’s clothing. The standard Focus is already a hoot to drive, but add some serious power, racy underpinnings and steroid injections to the bodywork and you have a proper performance machine.


Thankfully, this hot hatch has lost none of its charm and everyday usability in the transformation, with a five door option available, as well as a big boot and comfy cabin. All this for a car that tops out at around £22k.

And hot hatches don’t have to cost silly money to insure either. Why not compare car insurance quotes to see what a Ford Focus ST will cost you to cover – you may be surprised.

Best for top-down poseurs – Mazda MX-5

Calling the MX-5 a poseur’s car is a bit unfair. From the outside it has all the right ingredients: long bonnet, pert little rump, folding roof and just the two seats, so it’s a hit with those who want to look the part. But the truth is the MX-5 is also a real driver’s car.


It has a sharp rear-wheel drive chassis, a choice of keen petrol engines, and is undemanding behind the wheel. Cynics might say it’s a carbon-copy of a certain British roadster, but the truth is that the MGB was never this good.


The MX-5 range starts at £15,420.

Best for tight budgets and tight parking spaces – Fiat 500 Abarth

This little rocketship is a triumph in compact style and performance, and is expected to cost under £14k when it’s released in spring 2009.


You’ll need to be quick though as this could well be hit of the year. The standard 500 is already a pleasure to look at and to drive, but the Abarth version adds a mean streak and some serious punch.


It outshines the Mini Cooper for style and should cost about the same, so get ahead of the fashionistas and go Italian. The Abarth is expected to fall into car insurance tax band D.

Best of British – Lotus Elise

The little Norfolk car maker has been plugging away for years producing some of the best sports cars at any price, and the current Elise is arguably their best yet.

The combination of light weight, sparkling engines and some of the best chassis engineers in the world means you, the lucky driver, gets to savour a car that simply loves bends, looks fantastic and is exhilarating to drive.

Even better, the entry-level S model nips in at £24k – bargain basement for a pint-sized supercar. The top-spec SC model is head-bangingly fast but just creeps over our £30k barrier.


The lightweight approach also pays off at the pumps – despite the performance, the Elise S can still do 34mpg, which is cheap motoring by sports car standards.

Lamborghini Ankonian

Check out the pictures of this cool Lamborghini car concept designed by Slavche Tanevsky. This super sports car is a more aggressive version of the famous Lamborghini Reventon. Officially named the Lamborghini Ankonian, this car could make a seriously cool Batmobile for the next Batman movie!

Ferrari 458 Italia Pictures and Videos

Ferrari has confirmed that the car, codenamed F142 and long rumoured to be named the F450, will be called the 458 Italia. The name derives from the powerplant: a 4.5-litre V8 which Ferrari claims has the highest specific output of any normally aspirated car engine.




It certainly has more in common with superbikes than cars; at 127bhp per litre, the specific output is greater than that of many turbocharged engines. The high-revving 4498cc V8 has very light internal parts and tiny piston skirts, resulting in low rotation inertia and a 12.5:1 compression ratio. It puts out 562bhp at 9000rpm, 500rpm higher than the 430. That makes it the highest-revving Ferrari road car ever.



It means the 458 Italia will be ferociously fast, and Ferrari claims it will sprint to 62mph in under 3.4sec on its way to a top speed of “over 200mph”. While advanced engine electronics and lightweight parts underpin the extra performance, this will be the first mid-engined application of Ferrari’s direct injection fuel system, which appeared first on the front-engined California. It also runs Ferrari’s now-traditional flat-plane crankshaft.




The 458’s engine will be one of the most flexible in Ferrari’s history, too, with 398lb ft of torque arriving at 6000rpm. While that sounds peaky, it’s only two-thirds of the way through the 458’s rev range, and over 80 per cent (318lb ft) is available from 3250rpm.


The direct fuel injection has also helped cut CO2 emissions, producing a claimed 320g/km of CO2, even though it is faster and produces significantly more power than the 483bhp F430 and the 508bhp 430 Scuderia.

Dual-clutch ’box
Ferrari learned a lot developing the seven-speed dual-clutch gearbox for the California and it has had to do even more development to fit the unit into the 458 Italia’s engine bay, under the curvaceous glasshouse.

The dual-clutch unit from the California has been modified with different ratios and now shifts even faster than the 430 Scuderia’s 0.06sec. The gearbox’s shift style is likely to be slightly more aggressive than the California’s.



The E-Diff differential and the F1-Trac skid control system have long been the flagship carryover technologies from Formula 1, but the 458 Italia takes them even further and adds another piece of F1-derived technology to the brakes.

Instead of using individual ECUs for the E-Diff and F1-Trac, the 458 Italia has one ECU to control both (as well as the ABS system), resulting in streamlined processing and communication. Ferrari claims a 32 per cent increase in acceleration over the F430 (itself no slouch) out of corners.

The brakes feature a new system called ‘prefill’. When the driver’s foot lifts off the throttle, the pistons in the calipers move the pads towards the discs; that helps to reduce the stopping distance from 62mph to just 32.5 metres.

Aluminium chassis
Ferrari has used its experience from designing the 430 Scuderia’s suspension to create the 458 Italia’s double wishbone front set-up and multi-link rear end, all bolted directly to the aluminium chassis. It’s been developed with the help of Michael Schumacher, who was spotted testing the car.

Ferrari has close ties to aluminium specialist Alcoa, which has built a factory near Modena to produce chassis for the firm. The 458 Italia’s frame uses ideas from both the 430 Scuderia and the Mille Chili concept car.

It uses more advanced bonding techniques than the 430 did, along with manufacturing processes more in line with the aero industry.

F1 wind tunnel
While the 458 was designed by Pininfarina, the shape has been developed using Ferrari’s F1 wind tunnel. The bases of the black intakes in the front bumper deform at speed, closing up the intakes and reducing drag. These intakes also provide downforce and feed air though the radiators ahead of the front wheels.

The car’s shape makes air curve around the cabin and run over the integrated tail spoiler. The flat undertray enhances the effects of the rear diffuser to create 140kg of downforce at 125mph.

Inside, the 458 Italia will take the opportunity created by the more luxurious California to become the sportiest V8 in the family. Ferrari says the steering wheel and dashboard are “new innovations in production cars”; expect a development of the firm’s wheel-mounted manettino switch.



The Ferarri 458 will be built alongside the California in a new production facility at Maranello. The car will be launched at the Frankfurt motor show next month and is expected to go on sale in the UK next spring. It will be more expensive than the F430, so expect prices to start at around £150,000.

Ferrari 458 Videos

Lamborghini Reventón Roadster - Pictures Revealed!

A collection of cool Lamborghini Reventón Roadster pictures. Lamborghini Reventón Roadster will be officially unveiled at the Frankfurt auto show this month. We can see from these initial pictures that it’s a proper, open-air follow-up to the Lamborghini Reventón coupe that debuted at the 2007 Frankfurt show.

Based on the Murciélago, but with more sinister styling, loads more carbon fiber, and a jet-fighter-inspired cockpit, fewer than 20 examples will reportedly be built, with each carrying a price tag likely well in excess of $1 million. Power will likely come from the same 641-hp, 6.5-liter V-12 found in the hardtop, with a six-speed automated manual and all-wheel drive comprising the rest of the drivetrain.



Performance also should be similar, with 60 mph arriving in as little as 3.4 seconds. However, the roadster’s top speed is likely to be a bit less than the 224 mph claimed for the coupe. Inside, expect acres of Alcantara and more carbon fiber, as well as unique aviation-themed LCD instrumentation.