120 or 190 MK1

[atomsoon]

First post
I have looked at both cars which are available for similar £ amounts.
190 offers massive bang for buck but is it fragile and will resale be more tricky. Concerned about VHPD after Caterham horror stories in SLR? Can a 190 last more than 7500 miles without a rebuild in an atom?
120 seems a great compromise and potentially no big rebuild costs and easier resale.
Any opinions on what to choose.
Regards
Rich

[ross]

Are you talking about a second hand purchase rather than new?

I guess you must be, in which case, if you want to keep costs down and just concentrate on having a cheap thrills you may as well do it in the 120.

The 190 will be quicker but will break sooner and cost much more to run and through the corners (where all the funs really to be had) won't be much quicker.  Also, the 120 wil be easier to resell when you come to upgrade to a Honda powered mark 2 as there's a muhc bigger market of potential customers at that price point.

The 120 will be loads of fun on the road, but you'll probably find it a bit lacking in power/torque for faster circuits - I used to have loads of fun in mine at Oulton Park though.

Cheers, Ross.

[atomsoon]

Ross, thanks for the reply, you are probably right although the 190 is very tempting. Nobody on here seems to own one at present so getting the owners viewpoint still proving tricky.
Regards
Rich

[benyeats]

I went through a similar thing and decided on a 120 (plus that was all that was around at the time).  With hindsight one can purchase a used K-series engine in reasonably high tune for not much money so the worst case scenario of a complete engine explosion is not even that bad.

The 120 that is for sale (the yellow one) is probably more like 130-140 as it has a hotter engine map than standard.

Ben