Mid Week Match-Up: Graduation Present
For this week’s Mid Week Match-Up, I am going to use a hypothetical person, a recent graduate of high school (he probably took a Datsun 810 to the prom). Anyway, this recent graduate needs a car for college and you (his Dad/Mom) need to help find him something practical, reliable, big enough for to haul his stuff to school, and most importantly — cheap. Let’s impose a maximum budget of $5k and see what you can find.
Sure this college kid would love a tire smoking muscle car, but he’s much more likely to get the van behind it…sorry kid. Comments below.
Image from artsdigitalera.com.
AMAZING OFFER!!! ACURA TL
5 Speed, reliable. much bigger than the CRX i used to get to college.
And yes, it's a great example of a terrible craigslist listing. Is it really an amazing offer? Does it actually have a manual transmission? Why did it get re-painted? Is the driver-side front wheel a spare? Does it have seats? Does it have an engine?
cool – not a V8 like the Chevelle but a W8
maybe a GTI?
Mazda 6 Wagon w/ a 5 Speed:
autotrader.com/cars-for-sale/vehicledetails.xhtml?zip=11735&endYear=2015&vehicleStyleCodes=WAGON&modelCode1=MAZDA6&showcaseOwnerId=100010384&startYear=1981&makeCode1=MAZDA&searchRadius=0&mmt=[MAZDA[MAZDA6[]][]]&listingId=366671830&Log=0
I saw my first one of these in the wild last night. V6, M/T, wagon, black leather interior, very clean but in that awful metallic teal color.
Nothing says congrats and get out of the house like this:
omaha.craigslist.org/rvs/4445180521.html
They don't even have to worry about finding an apartment!
Mazda Protege 5 Wagon.
Reliable, cheap, not too big, but room for their stuff and available with a proper transmission.
CL Mazda Protege 5
This was the first car I built in high school. My friends dad let us use his garage and his tools. My buddy built a 1969 convertible GTO that he got for $1,200. I traded a rx7 for a beat 1970 Chevelle SS but it had a 396, muncie m22 and 4:11 posi and a flapper hood. Ended up selling it in college for 7 grand. I should have skipped college and kept the car.
i10.photobucket.com/albums/a106/sscott55/70chevelle_zps9ad1a339.jpg
BTW how do you hotlink on here? Sorry about the copy and paste link
See Commenting Commandment III below. You have to type out the html code. Old school, yo!
ok, might have it this time, fussy little connectors keep snapping off…
HOW TO MAKE A CLICKABLE LINK
every character matters, and it has to look like this
<a href =" yourlink.com">description of your link</a>
the visible result would be just the words "description of your link", which will be clickable and take you to the link
ok, real example – i type up this
<a href =" horsenation.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/horse-driving-car.jpg">a little extra horsepower</a>
which publishes like this
a little extra horsepower
go ahead and click it, and feel free to experiment here = more comments!
kids today – seems like they'd rather have $5000 in a prepaid Uber account – except the unusually bright college boy who snagged a sweet low-mile Saab 900T just as i was arriving to see it last weekend – A+ for you
That score was just settled when the DT E-i-C just snagged the car I would have chosen for this matchup , leaving some handsome Beer fundage available for the unused balance of the $5K spending limit! "Here's to Mom and Dad as they're buying the Beer!"
What could go wrong?
A Fiero
For that parent sending their child to a private institution of higher education but still knows that Buffy or Sterling is still going to crash into something during the 6 years it takes them to get their business degree.
Jag X-type w/ MT
For the child who brings home their laundry every weekend for Mom to do despite going to school 4+ hours away.
45 mpg
Flying under the radar with 20,000 original miles.
SuperCharged
This was my son's college car: Oldest car at Central Michigan University and it was quite the snowmobile for RWD.
My wife's CMU cruiser was a slightly newer '72 Hornet Sportabout Wagon with soupcan & tie wire exhaust patches. Stylin'
My mother asked me to pick out a car for my younger sister to take to college in 1985. After much looking we settled on a Jensen Healey. It.was the perfect college car. Nobody would ever ask her to help move from one apartment to another. If a bunch of kids were going on a trip, they never went in her car. Everybody was scared to borrow it after the "only use the choke for 5 seconds on a cold start , and there's a fire extinguisher under the passenger seat" speech. She wasn't likely to drive in bad weather, learned to plan ahead, and she dated much more interesting boys.
We missed buying a Lotus Seven by about 20 minutes. That would have been even more practical..
the best deal out there for cheap, roomy reliable transportation no matter where you are, is a 1991-2000 jeep cherokee with the 4.0 I6. they run forever, get 20 mpg, parts are dirt cheap, and you can do simple things like change the oil, sparkplugs etc yourself with nothing but a $15 walmart tool kit. hell, i had arm surgery a few years a go when i had one of these beasts, and changed the oil with one arm! lol. good 100k mile examples can be found for $2500.
A minivan might be best.
I don't want my kids hot-rodding around. Safety is a consideration.
Carrying curb couches is handy
Early 20 somethings often wind up homeless voluntarily or not, I'd want a place for them to stay other than back at the house.
In the dorm, guys with cars made a bit of cash going home for holidays by selling rides home, 7 passengers could make that profitable.
Since this is DT, might need to make it interesting, with the mid-engined Previa. Here's one with some minor issues for well under budget:
minneapolis.craigslist.org/ank/cto/4504871777.html
Though a little higher than $5k, I just picked up an '04 Volvo V70R 6-speed for $5,300 as my DD. But I did splurge and buy the extra set of V Pegasus wheels with snows. That puts me at $5,900, and it needs about $500 worth of work for me to be satisfied that it'll keep going for a while. So, for $6,400 total, my 15-soon-to-be-16 year old son will be riding in style… when I let him behind the wheel.