What’s The Best Used Sports Car For Less Than $8,000?

The affordable sports car conversation has been dominated of late by the new 2023 Nissan Z, which is expected to come in at less than $40,000.

But while that might make it good value next to its more expensive Toyota Supra rival, and bearing in mind its twin-turbo V6’s 400 hp output, it’s still not that affordable to a big chunk of the car enthusiast community.

The good news is there are plenty of used sports cars of all different kinds that almost anyone can afford, as YouTube channel EverydayDriver proves with this Cheap Sports Car Showdown.

Setting a spending limit of $7500, its hosts pulled together an impressive collection that includes twisty road legends like the Mazda MX-5, the sublime Porsche Boxster, and the Z’s granddad, the 350Z. There are even a couple of forgotten sports cars, including the Mk3 Toyota MR2 and the Pontiac Solstice.

Related: The Nissan Z Is Expected To Cost $40k, Here Are 10 Other RWD Coupes You Can Buy Instead, And Why You Should

To qualify for the shootout the cars had to be no older than 25 years, have no more than two seats, be equipped with a manual transmission and rear-wheel drive, and be available to buy right now on the Auto Tempest car sales website within the $7500 budget.

Regular viewers of the channel might recognize the BMW Z4 and Mercedes SLK from the team’s previous cheap sports car buying challenge. To find out whether the presenters made a mistake in buying the German pair, they automatically put them forward to the next round to compete against the three picks from this week’s video.

The MX-5 gets the nod because both presenters agree it should go forward, and probably because the internet would implode if it didn’t. Then the duo gets to pick a car each, and send the Porsche Boxster and Toyota MR2 into the next round.

Did they choose the right cars? Which two-seater would you spend your $8k on?