A Horse With No Name

Oh, and another car to consider, priced right and fast-LT1 C4 Corvette. Lots of aftermarket stuff, run great at local autocrosses and track days, affordable, decent looking. Interior tends to be a little (or a lot) on the cheap side, but a very responsive touring car. Buying a car like that for say 9K could free up a lot of funds for New Hamshire. Beating on that car like a red headed step child could free up a lot of the Camino blahs. The view through the windscreen at 130 MPH is impressive. These cars look great as Corvette Cheallenge cars at Vintage races. (although the challenge cars were not the LT-1 cars.) Also...Buick Grand National. Prices are way back down, a 100k mile decent car could be had for about 6K-7K if you look, and...can be beaten on like nothing doing 1/4 mile at a time. But I like the Mustang and the vette best for you. Best buy-one of the limited edition 96 Grand Sport Coupes. Affordable, and John Heinricey thinks enough of it to have one in his personal fleet. In fact it is one of his fav. cars. Chris

Ideas I would have... Mustang Mach 1, the 2002-2003 bodystyle Mach's. Neat, kind of retro interior, shaker, one of the few modern Mustangs that I like. An 80's El Camino, High option, with a manual conversion. Not modern, but would be cool. Not your thing, but you could get an RX-8. Not much tourque, but priced right and a real drivers car. You may want to drive one just for the heck of it. Get a C5 Z06. An animal of a car, affordable, almost guaranteed not to drop in value. Of the above, my choice for you would be the stang. The Mustang interior is a huge letdown over the GTO, but it is also more involving than the GTO to drive. Plus, lots of aftermarket stuff available for the 'stang. Plus the Mustang Mach is another limited production car like the Z06 that will probably not go down to zero value. Only other thing I would reccomend, please don't be offended...would be an Impala SS from the 90's. Mind bendlingly comfortable, plenty of performance potential, bargain priced, great resale, lots of things can be done with the LT-1, great highway fuel economy, etc. Oh, and when you get a Mach or a C5 Z06, be sure to check out the Philly region of the SCCA. Lots of fun ways to actually make those go fast and have fun... Chris

...again, would learn towards best Camaro ever... Well said, 'blu. Chris

They are really all starting to look the same. Nice dashboard, though... Chris

Ding, ding, ding, we have a winner. These cars look much better thant he current Avalon, Maxima, Accord, et al. Nice work! Chris

IMHO the Acord Coupe needs a little work on the sides in terms of styling. Chris

Bullet FTW! Chris

I'm with 'blu...what do you guys want, seriously???? Like I've said before, enjoy the Camaro now, it is the last of it's breed. This is the best Camaro interior to date and you guys want to sit on the internet and bash it? Methinks your just upset that you don't have 35K to go buy an actual Camaro SS. Chris

Sad but true... Guess if I hit the lottery it will be a BMW 335d then??? (I'd have to play the lottery first...) Chris

I'll take the one with bulges in the sweater, you take the one with bulges in the pants. We can both be very, very happy. Chris

Which is why these cars sell. My wife loves her first gen xB. Chris

Actually after seeing the pics in the other thread, I amn really hoping for a cool small Buick around 2015. I can hope, anyways. Agree Reg that the Fit's doors are kinda thin and tinny. The Fit is kind of love it or hate it...when we test drove one my wife loved it and my kids hated it. Chris

Don't forget the extra tourque of a diesel. The diesel driving experience is very worthwhile. Wish we got the CTS-D here in the USA, as well as the 300 Chryco Diesel. Chris

Actually again while I don't like the ricers the actual guys who race Hondas are a pretty cool group of people. Sadly, the interesting Hondas (older Civics, Preludes, CRX, et al) are going away and S2000 production ended back in June. Read in a Honda Tuning Magazine about a guy who put 48 thou in a Civic-I can see a Honda as a cheap racecar, but I can't see dumping 48 K into one... Chris

Good for mine also, glad to see someone making progress. Chris

$ for $ it is an excellent used car buy. Again, great write up. Chris

This is what is giving me hope for a GM car in my future. If we do this as a small Buick and get the details right... I'm in lust at the thought. Chris

That happened quite a bit around here. a really nice Mercury Grand Marquis, a nice Barn door Suburban 4WD (nice dark blue) and a Grand Cherokee wound up out of the clunker line and into the wholesale line at a local Hyundai dealer. I know of a couple of El Camino's that were saved in this way also. Chris

That is amazingly sad, and two of the local ones (the White one at the Lexus dealer and the maroon one at the Toyota dealer out by Brice Road) were in really, really great shape. Silver one that Toyota West clunked was decent as well. Chris

...and how do cars like the Fiero and Xr4Ti even qualify...fuel economy on thsoe cars must be way higher.... Chris

I would agree. That makes me sad. Chris

This list just strikes me as a little bogus. First of all, by some accounts a 2008 Scion xD was traded in under the program. A car has to get less than 18 MPG to qualify, this car obviously doesn't qualify. Other than the Chryco double cash deal, there is another trick around here used to clunk cars. Say you own a Mustang GT convertible, a Wrangler, a Z71 Extended cab, or whatever. Say it's worth 6500 wholesale and 8500 retail. Dealers would call salvage yards, agree to sell them the car with the clunked motor for say $1500 or so. They would then give the buyer $1500 on the bottom line in addition to the $4500, and eat $500 to make a sale. All of a sudden a $6500 car gets clunked. I would bet that's what happened to a lot of the more desireable stuff. High mileage or Katrina car or whatever, a lot of these vehicles bring real money as parts, esp. cars like Mustangs, Wranglers, 4 WD trucks, etc. Also...a lot of cars that got clunked needed to be clunked. I know some of the sales staff at the Mazda dealer where we hold our Miata club meetings, and got to talking to the guys before one of our meetings while CFC was going on. A LOT of what looked good was really pretty rough. For instance...the nice Mustang GT ragtop they took in previously belonged to a Columbus Police officer. It was badly damaged in an accident and never drove or rode right after the repair. Car was unsafe, and rather than sue the bodyshop and trying to refix an bodged car it was easier to just clunk it and get a new one. One of the nice fullsize Z71 trucks they clunked was a former flood victim, a seemingly nice Jeep they took in had major main bearing problems and high miles, etc. That's not saying I'm glad to see cars die...the Mazda dealer also had a fullsize Bronco (like Oj's) with a 5" lift, new 35" BF Goodrich All terrains, a new paint job, lots of extra chrome, a perfect interior, etc. Guy trading it just wanted a family car so he clunked it for a Mazda 3. And I'm sure an equally nice Blazer died somewhere. That being said, several RX-7's died locally...but most were pretty gone. One of them would ahve been a parts car even if it had been a 68 SS 396 Camaro ragtop, car was that far gone. And no, I'm not happy that 373 or so RX-7's died, but a lot of them that I saw were pretty trashed. Just my two cents. And I still doubt a real GNX died. Chris

Excellent write up. The autotrajic kills this car, as do the all season tires. With a 5 speed and real tires the car is transformed. The son of one of the guys in our VW TDI club lives in Cinci and got one of these. With real tires and a manual...this is a real car. For real. Chris

Buick keeps this up they will earn some of my $ in the future. Car is drop dead beautiful...esp. in the color above As a side note it is cool how safe modern cars are becoming. I just picked up my daughter from school and we passed a nasty accident on the way home. A Honda Odysea was pretty trashed in an interstate chain reaction wreck, but it looked like the driver was getting minor medical help. Chris

This reminds me of the people who believe in god because they see the face of the virgin mary in a piece of french toast or hear the voice of allah in the wind or see Jesus in the couds or something. Cool pic! Maybe that chip needs some fiery salsa? Chris