What should I get for my first car?

bman49

bman49

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Feb 19, 2008
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Ok, I made a thread recently and I mentioned that for my first car I might get a 135i and a couple of other sports cars for my first car. When I said this I was told that I won't make it past 17. I thought about this and knowing that I don't have much driving experience and most of you on this forum seem to do I ask this question. What should I get for my first car? Also please no one start a flame war I'm asking a genuine question.

The things I would prefer for my first car is it's not FWD (just don't like the way they feel), has tight steering, is a manual, and will still look good in a couple of years.
 
Short Version: MAZDA MIATA!, MR2, S2000, I like my Camaro Z28 but dont expect it to be safe, cheap or easy to drive.

Long version: It depends on what kind of thing you can enjoy, i dont think a first time driver really only has to have a boring tiny hatchback as a first car.

I say get yourself a used MR2, miata, honda S2000, something like that.

I own a manual Chevrolet Camaro Z28, its good fun if you enjoy the v8 thing, but they are not easy to drive or really very safe. I know 5 people with these cars, and 3 of them have crashed them into a stationary object. And i'm including myself in that list, thankfully as one of the two that hasn't pranged it. (its a point of laughter among us that we never manage to hit another car, its always a pole or curb)
 
What's wrong with FWD cars in normal driving? Just because they don't work very well on a track, they can do perfectly well on regular streets and interstates even if you don't obey the speed limits completely.
Even if you want to street race it (by your age, I'm guessing you are thinking about it...) FWD cars are not bad at drag racing.
 
Everybody ruins their first car in one way or other, so get something that won't mind being roughed up a bit. My Bluebird got a fair bit of abuse during the year I owned it...
 
I've still got my first car 6-7 years later!

And just in case i didnt drop the hint strongly enough in my other post:

[youtube=_ZM89fGWV-M]The perfect first car[/youtube]
 
Old RWD Celica with the 22R-E engine in it. Absolutely unkillable and there's a billion of them in Southern California for cheap. And surprisingly both fun to drive AND good on gas.
 
Celica_GTS_1983.jpg


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wrecked_003.jpg
 
Those black flared wheelarches do give the Celica a sort of Cross Country/Outback look... :)
 
How much does a 135i go for in the States? Is it in the same league as the old Toyotas or as my SLK? I liked those Celicas but over here they mostly have gone to meet the great rust bucket in the sky, made before they had perfected rust proofing.
 
A 135 is over $30K here, IIRC.

You should never have a new car for the first car.

And those old Toyotas are under $2000.
 
You could get a nice early 2001-ish Audi A6 4.2 with ~100k on the clock for about 10 grand, I suppose.
Not exactly the sportiest, but I would take it.
 
Depends on what you want. If you want to corner quickly, civic or mini. If you want to go quickly then camaro. If you want to show off then audi/bmw with shiny wheels. If you've watched the fast and the furious too many times... then I feel sorry for you :p

I'll tell you this much though (and this comes from a lot of research that I should have done before buying my autotragic boat of a car): if you want to become a good driver the Miata is the only way to go - it has the potential to annihilate almost anything at autocross and it will teach you more about driving than any other car. One thing you have to remember (this only really applies if you want to get good) is that power spoils everything. You want to learn how a car handles and how to control it and a big engine will simply make you rely on straight-aways at the expense of cornering. Basically, you don't need anything that runs the 1/4 below 15 sec.
This brings me on to another point - buy a cheap car, learn to drive it fast, then use the rest of money left over from not buying a 135 to upgrade your ride. Using the miata as an example, you can do a LOT in terms of suspension/rigidity/etc (handling stuff) and then concentrate on the one last missing component of a fast car (in addition to handling and the third, most important factor - driver) - power. There are TONS of options; you can research those yourself when the time is right lol.

The most important suggestion I can make is don't spend a lot on your first car. Buy something cheap and fun and figure out where you want to go from there. There are lots of ways of having fun in a car, you just need to figure out which one is for you. Go to a local autocross, rallycross, etc.
 
Here's my advice: Something generally goes catastrophically wrong with your first car. Some people wreck it. Others blow the engine. My first car was a 1990 Buick. The air conditioning compressor blew and would send sparks around the engine bay.

You're a new driver. Do you really want to wreck a brand new Bimmer? That Corolla, the RWD ones, are nice cars, and you can wrench it yourself.
 
JakeRadden said:
You could get a nice early 2001-ish Audi A6 4.2 with ~100k on the clock for about 10 grand, I suppose.
Not exactly the sportiest, but I would take it.
Click to expand...

Slow.

Get your self a 1999.5 A4 1.8t in 5 speed. You get the face lifted looks with the AEB motor (big port intake and exhaust) put a k04 turbo on there and you've got a car that'll give an E46 M3 a run for its money, all for dirt cheap. Not to mention that you have all wheel drive. On my stock turbo I ran 14.6, not too slow with simple bolt ons.
 
I would only recommend getting something "fun" if it has predictable handling characteristics, as much as I love MR2s i wouldn't recommend them for new drivers. If your a beemer fan you could always go oldschool and look into a E30 of some sort, i've met many people who have the money for new cars and still go back and buy E30s just because their such good little cars, not sure if their cheap to fix when they go wrong, but if you were thinking about a 135i then i don't think thats the biggest issue for you.

The Miata is a good choice, but i think at your age you would probably hate to be seen driving a "girls" car. Even if that title is unfair, i can relate to the shit your friends will give you if you get a car like that.

I WOULD NOT recommend most Japanese cars, their usually only fun if you have money to tune them, otherwise all of them are fairly boring and or annoying/uncomfortable. But i mostly form that opinion based off the fact the the noise a car makes is within the top 3 on my priority list, so i am a bit weird.


Personally? I would get something thats as good to drive as possible, without having the sense of sportyness that make you want to drive quicker then you probbaly should, it will give you more time to learn the rules of the road, which means later on when you still have a clean driving record and a respectable reputation you can start tearing ass, to a certain degree.

If you do get something fun, for the love of god take it to a autocross or something, you DO NOT want to learn car control on the open road, if nothing else atleast find a very empty parking lot and start from there.
 
Militant-Grunt said:
Slow.

Get your self a 1999.5 A4 1.8t in 5 speed. You get the face lifted looks with the AEB motor (big port intake and exhaust) put a k04 turbo on there and you've got a car that'll give an E46 M3 a run for its money, all for dirt cheap. Not to mention that you have all wheel drive. On my stock turbo I ran 14.6, not too slow with simple bolt ons.
Click to expand...

I find this surprising. I've driven an A4 1.8T and it didn't feel very fast at all.
 
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