The best affordable sports cars - driven, rated and ranked

Best for: daily driving

The Porsche 718 remains by some distance the most complete mid-engined sports car on sale.

The car’s ability to deploy its performance has only been magnified by the engineers’ efforts to firm up the fundamentals.

Matt Saunders, Road test editor

Whether fitted with a four- or a six-cylinder motor, be in no doubt: the Boxster and Cayman have always been, and remain, excellent.

Let's not forget the naturally aspirated flat-six engine in upper-level GTS, GT4 and Boxster Spyder models. It's a superb engine by any standards - based on the 3.0-litre unit in the '992' 911, only enlarged to 4.0 litres and shorn of the turbos.

Both the Boxster and Cayman remain practical, ever-engaging to drive, and plenty fast even in four-cylinder form.

The 718 still has it all - and it takes a car of once-in-a-generation dynamic brilliance to beat it.

Best for: driver engagement

Anyone with a £50,000 budget to spend on something in which they just want to enjoy themselves would be remiss in the extreme to overlook one of the most direct and glaringly obvious solutions to their brief: the utterly brilliant Ariel Atom 4.

The Atom retains so absorbing a dynamic character that it can be enormous fun on both road and track, when so many of its close rivals simply can’t do both.

Richard Lane, Deputy road test editor

This lightweight two-seater is part motorbike, part car, part tubular curio. But while demanding plenty of commitment from its driver, it’s superbly involving and characterful.

Our favourite lightweight sports car, the Atom keeps it focus squarely on the essentials. A windscreen is an optional extra - and if you don’t go for one, a helmet is an absolute must. 

But huge pace and almost unrivalled excitement are this car’s crowning glories. The former comes from the car’s turbocharged Honda four-cylinder engine, which can be turned up as far as 350bhp in a car weighing little more than 600kg.

But the latter isn’t just about superbike-baiting acceleration. The Atom's chassis is singularly adjustable, and it can be made so easily to work every bit as well on a bumpy, flowing B-road as on a track day.

Getting on top of an Atom on the track and getting every scrap of performance from it is a challenge like few sports cars can offer in 2024. 

Best for: outright value

There isn't a single area in which this fourth-generation Mazda MX-5 fails to surpass its predecessor. It's shorter, lighter, more spacious and better laid out. It's sharper looking but still disarming and not at all ostentatious. It's also faster, more frugal and even more vibrant and engaging to drive.

With its lack of needless complication, light weight and manual gearbox, the MX-5 flits inertia-free from corner to corner, feeling like a breath of fresh a

Richard Lane, Deputy road test editor

In 2018, Mazda facelifted its iconic roadster, with the headline change being a 23bhp power hike for its feisty 2.0-litre engine. A steering column that also now adjusts for reach was also introduced, addressing one of the MX-5's only ergonomic drawbacks.

The entry-level 1.5-litre MX-5 still develops 130bhp, while the 2.0-litre model makes 181bhp but also gets a front strut brace, a limited-slip differential and uprated Bilstein dampers as standard. 

Whichever you choose, rear-driven chassis poise and lots of driver involvement are guaranteed.

That’s because the MX-5 is still every inch the same zesty and inimitable car that it always has been. Its character hasn't really changed at all in three decades, and nothing on this list offers a better pounds-per-smile rating.

Best for: thrills

The Super 3 (the 2012 reinvention, not the 1909 original) proved to be a surprise hit for the Malvern maker. Around 2500 left the factory over a 10-year production run, which for the nichiest of niche manufacturers is as close to mass production as it gets.

It aims to put a smile on your face with an experience that takes you away from the mundane and everyday, and it does so with joyful verve.

Matt Prior, Editor-at-large

Thankfully, today's Super 3 oozes the same spirit and charm of its predecessor, yet comes in a far more versatile and modern package.

The unique three-wheel layout remains the same, as do the upturned bathtub looks, but under the skin, there's a stronger monocoque construction, more sophisticated suspension and a three-cylinder Ford Fiesta engine in place of a throbbing V-twin.

Tipping the scales at just 635kg, the 118bhp Morgan is brisk, its performance aided by a snickety five-speed manual sourced from the Mazda MX-5. Yet it's the way the skinny-tyred machine tackles corners that delivers the real delight, the modest grip levels and well-balanced handling making it huge fun at any speed - but especially accessibly so on the road.

Most lightweight specials offer greater outright pace and better circuit suitability than this, and the last 3 Wheeler had a bit more character, but when all you want to do is drive on the sort of roads that most of us use every day and grab every moment of joy you can while doing so, few cars will have your heart singing more loudly.

Best for: aural pleasure

The seventh-generation ‘Stang arrived late in 2024, and given we named it our Best Dream Car at our annual awards, we believe it's better than ever. 

It’s worth sticking with the manual, then, and it’s hard to see why you would bother with the Dark Horse either. It gets only a handful of extra power and no extra torque, and this GT drives every bit as well.

Illya Verpraet, Road Tester

That said, the Mustang ownership experience has a few drawbacks in the UK. The car’s sheer size means you have to think twice about where you're going to park it in town and what kinds of country lanes you might seek out with it. 

With its dipsomaniac 5.0-litre V8, meanwhile, you will need to factor in a greater number of visits to the pumps than your peers in their German sports cars. Ford of Europe used to offer a four-cylinder engine in the car to soften the blow on this front but has since discontinued it. 

The Mustang is a throwback of a sports car, needless to say, yet few direct rivals have such obvious likability. Its powertrain brings with it an appeal that engines with fewer cylinders simply don't muster and its rear-drive chassis balance is pretty peachy too

Best for: simplicity

For more than 70 years, the Caterham Seven in all its forms (Lotus and Caterham) has been setting a defining standard for pure driver thrills.

The Seven is more of a weekend car, or something for trackdays

Matt Prior, Editor-at-large

If you don’t care about refinement, disregard modern crash-safety tests and wonder instead what kind of sports car will entertain you most widely and vividly wherever you happen to be, this diminutive British sports car is hard to beat.

The most affordable way into a new Seven is the Caterham Seven 170, which starts at £28,990 if you're willing to wield the spanners and build it yourself.

With its 84bhp turbocharged 660cc Suzuki engine, the Caterham looks a little weedy on paper, but a kerb weight of as little as 440kg means 0-60mph can be done and dusted in less than 7.0sec, the gargling three-pot engine encouraging you all the way.

Above the Seven 170, Caterham now offers the retro-themed Super Seven 600 and Super Seven 2000. Extended front cycle wings and plenty of body chrome trim give these cars classic Seven looks, but they can still be bought and built in kit form, the latter offering 180bhp of Ford Duratec power.

Move up again and you’re into proper performance Caterham territory, where proper motorsport-ready models can be found with as much as 310bhp, sequential gearboxes, full roll cages, track-ready slick tyres and fully adjustable suspension systems.

Here, even the madcap Caterham Seven 620R could be yours, fully factory-built and ready to go, for a lot less than the price of a Porsche 718 Cayman GT4.

Cheaper Sevens get a live rear axle and lack the ride sophistication of the pricier De Dion-equipped cars, but with their skinny tyres and wrist-flick steering, they can still dance this way and that through corners, entertaining like only lightweight cars could.

The most innocent and exhilarating fun on four wheels? Quite possibly.

Best for: interior quality

The BMW Z4 still the platform sibling of the Toyota Supra, but it's got its own trump cards to play that help it stand out. 

Experiencing the outstanding 3.0-litre straight six with a manual gearbox opens up a new dimension of involvement.

Matt Saunders, Road test editor

It comes with the option of a drop-top, and its powertrain selection offers a little more versatility compared to other models on this list. 

The range opens with a 194bhp variant, but the more sporty models come with 255bhp or a range-topping 3.0-litre turbocharged straight-six engine, offering 335bhp and 369lb ft of torque.

The Z4's strengths are found in its handling and ride, which have been significantly improved over its predecessor, offering great levels of stability at high speeds. 

A six-speed manual has also been made available since the start of 2024 (surprisingly, for the first time on this derivative) as part of the Handschalter Package, which also reconfigures the Z4's springs and dampers, and adjusts the model's steering mapping for a more engaging driving experience. 

It might sometimes feel more like a drop-top cruiser than an out-and-out sports car, but that's okay. Sometimes it's important to relax with the knowledge you can leave most other cars for dead at a set of lights. 

Best for: old-world charm

We’re stretching the bounds of qualification by including this car at the foot of our 'best affordable sports cars' roster but with justifiable mitigation. Morgan currently sells its cheapest four-wheeled sports car, the Morgan Plus Four, from a whisker under £63,000.

Here is a car that retains so much of the old-school charm and sense of occasion that has historically been key to its appeal but it does so despite being based on an all-new platform

Felix Page, Deputy editor

But because it has become a modern sports car brand with all avenues catered to and because Morgan sports cars have an almost unrivalled ability to hold their value, the company can offer surprisingly affordable finance deals on its models.

Which isn’t to say that a Plus Four would be anything like a 718 Boxster or GR Supra to own. Old-world charm is what this car exists to engender. Its design is about as inimitably retro as that of any car on the road.

But under its aluminium bodywork now sits a BMW turbocharged four-cylinder engine and an all-aluminium monocoque chassis, making this the first four-cylinder Morgan in the thick end of a century not to use traditional ladder-frame construction.

With 255bhp on tap, the Plus Four isn’t backwards coming forwards, but it remains a sports car for a particular, slightly laid back stride. It’s a car from which to take in a perfect English summer’s afternoon - with a bit of gusto, but nothing like as much as you might be tempted to with some sports cars.

Narrow and zippy, it makes short work of country lanes, although its cloth hood and half doors make for noisy motorway cruising, and neither its ride nor its limit handling are quite as well resolved as you might expect for your £60,000 sports car budget.

Even with a modern chassis and a modern turbocharged BMW engine, the Plus Four remains evocative to a fault. It’s still wonderful in its leafy, unhurried element.