My advice would be to go for a Porsche, even if you do not end up holding on to it as a long-term "keeper" - then you will not say "if only" at some later time.
That's essentially what we did a couple of years ago, and that was with having to borrow the money rather than having hard cash to lay down. There are plenty of cars in your price range, and even more if, dare I say it, you think about a Boxster which is a 911 from the rear door shuts forward? The 911 style is great but, unless you are wedded to the idea of a tintop, a similar mileage Boxster S will consume only about half of your funds to buy, and will give you a ragtop for nice weather, a front and back boot, and mid-engine handling; tubular manifolds and a bypass exhaust get rid of the anodyne standard Boxster exhaust note.
If you do go for a Porsche of whatever model, think also about the manual versus tiptronic decision, particularly if mobility of joints is an issue - it's the reason we went for the latter because the missus can't do the manual with her dodgy hips and we like ragtops anyway. The gear change is much quicker and in "M" is done at full throttle - on your command - without lifting. And it does what you tell it to, up or down the box, without randomly changing gear when it feels like it - the only time it won't is if you are daft enough to try and change down when the revs are already so high that to do so would over-rev the engine. Or, of course, you can just stick it in fully automatic "D" whenever you like, which is particularly useful when crawling around town or in a traffic jam.....works for us.
MG Mark
