What to do next?

March 14, 2013 at 3:55 pm
In the summer of 2013, this car will be all mine

In the summer of 2013, this car will be all mine

Sometime this summer, my beloved Legacy GT will officially be mine; after almost five years of payments I will be the full owner of the car that’s taken me all over the Northeast, created millions of snow doughnuts and made me curse the electrical quirks of Subaru.

I’m going to pause for a moment and admit something some of you might find fairly lame. I’m 30 years old and the Leggy is only the second car I’ve owned. I bought my never forgotten Grand Prix GT in 2003 and kept it until the transmission decided to quit after many miles of fighting me with torque steer and replaced it with the car I have today. I plan on keeping with my M.O. in regards to anything in life with the Leggy; run it until it’s beyond economical repair or in the ground.

So with the lack of a car payment I will start to have a few hundred bucks or so sitting in my pocket every month. I could do the sensible thing and put it in savings or an IRA; which I probably will do with some of it. Keeping with sensibility, some will be allocated to house needs and the fund for a new Macbook Pro.

Then there is the car guy in me, wanting to put the funds toward a fun second car. The question: what to buy?

I’ve thought about this long and hard, I want something fun, cheap and not a total basket case.  I’ve always been a fan of Camaros. Except for the white trash/mullet stereotype, a 3rd or 4th generation Z28 would fit the idea of a second car that is fun, fast, and easy to acquire parts for. Then comes one of my other loves; Datsun  510’s. I’ve been trolling ebay for about two years now checking out stock 510’s and 510’s with various SR20 engine swaps and dreaming of painting one up in BRE colors and pretending I’m John Morton. The negatives of this being the car being a rust bucket after a year in New England weather or getting either a stock 510 in need of much love or a half completed project car.

What about the modern day classic icons such as e30’s and Miata’s? Those sound right except that they’ve already been done by fellow Son of Taki Jeff Lavery and I don’t want to be seen as a copycat.

That leaves me things such as 944’s, 300zx’s, Viggen’s, WRX’s and a whole boatload of other options.

If you have any suggestions you have a year or so to offer them.