Rather B.Blown

Yes, because everyone knows how reliable and inexpensive it is to own a BMW. Parts and service are dirt cheap, not to mention that they rarely need either.

Supra

Have you considered a Honda S2000?

Rather B.Blown

Hey Rob!! Nice to see you! How are you doing?


Those are pretty hard to find, they didn't make a lot of them. Great car though.

Supra

Not too bad! Snow on the ground so I've been working as many hours as possible to stack up on mustangs parts! (its -58F here tonight by the way..)

How about yourself?


I drove my buddies S2000 a couple years ago, what an awesome car to drive! And it is a very nice lookin car with a 9k redline!

Rather B.Blown

I figured you were shut down for the winter. Crappy here too, but not like you have. Supposed to have snow tomorrow night and lows near zero mon and tues and highs in the low 20s (I know that isn't bad for you guys, but down here in the South its a serious situation, lol).

Haven't driven the 500 in a while, been raining and ****ty every weekend for about 6 weeks. Need to crank it and the '70 up tomorrow and let them run for a while before the bottom drops out of the temps.

future9er24

an M3 is a great car, no doubt, but every BMW i've been around for any length of time, be it a family members or a friends, has been expensive to work on and in need of more work more frequently.

Besides even if that wasn't the case, the cheapness of modifications factor comes nowhere near the miata world.

cntchds

I am also looking longingly at S2k's, but they are much more expensive. I would be picking up an 01/02 probably for the Miata which near me runs about 5-6k. Similar condition S2k's are in the 12-14k range. I just can't swing that without taking out a loan, and with school costs at the same time and saving up for future plans with my girlfriend I don't think that is a wise use of money.

I'm not that worried about power, honestly. I haven't done a single thing to my Mustang for more power except the tuner (which was more for mileage). I think that I would be pretty happy with the gas mileage and hopefully with a little extra cash from selling my car I'll be able to grab some suspension goodies for the new car.

That hard top looks awesome, but that costs almost half as much as the car itself, and it requires a cage to be permanently tacked to. Seems like more of a track mod than just to look bad ***. I do really like it, though, but having a full cage in a street car is a big no no. Having cage that close to passengers without A) four point/five point harnesses to prevent movement in a collision and B) a helmet to protect your head in case of contact with the cage is a pretty big deal. Something like that would probably really cool looking/practical if you fiberglassed in some strengthening ribs with a simple hoop roll bar, though. Just a big cost to look good.

I wish I could go for a MazdaSpeed, but they are significantly more expensive, and you could easily run a better turbo on an earlier model for less cash. Plus the rear gear got shorter in the MazdaSpeeds making it

BMW is out of the question. Too much cost for maintenance and parts if things go belly up.

future9er24

Yeah I figured it was too much but it's worth posting just to look at :P

dmichaels

Are you set on RWD? If not, there are a couple other FWD options out there too... but kinda sounds like you want RWD

bob

I like that!

Moosetang

I had an NA but there's not a huge distance between the two mechanically so I'll say that lots of miles shouldn't turn you off a good-looking car. They're solidly built and pretty easy to work on when something does konk out. Most trouble I had was the power windows, but after I swapped the motors in may garage they worked and never had anything else of that magnitude to worry about.

My advice is find one you love and get it, most fun you can have in a drop-top at anywhere near their price. And some of the best seats in the industry.

cntchds

I might settle for AWD, but I'm not ready to go that far down the rabbit hole just yet.

I was honestly thinking about a GTI for a little while, and I think I wouldn't be unhappy in one. I also thought about an SVT Focus. However, I think that my driving style is better suited to rear drive, and I find them a lot more enjoyable from my experiences.

Budget is between 5-6k depending on what I can get for my car.

hi5.0

Do it. Go for a NA (1.8) or NB w/hardtop. But please don't "stance it out"/go herrafrush. All the "dorifuto" kids around here seem to be doing that.