$25K budget for a kid’s first car? You must be high, or rich. The vast majority of cars in my daughter’s high school parking lot are worth less than $7K, and this is in an upper middle class area.

I’ve been riding for almost 50 years. During my first decade on bikes, I was what you’d call a “squid.” My friends and I split lanes, wove through traffic, etc. Looking back, I can say we were young, stupid, and not always lucky. Two friends died in two separate idiotic accidents. That was a wake-up call. Ever since,…

Good review. Thanks. As a 1995 Miata owner and occasional track day guy, I have to second what a number of others here have said: even $25K is too much for this thing. For example, my Miata cost me $6K 3 years ago, and that’s for a 55K mile, flawless car with roll bar, suspension mods, braces, wheels, tires,…

Oh, right. eBay sourced car. Duh. OK, so here’s another low miles Phaeton and it’s PURPLE. Enough money left in the deal for a decade of gas and maintenance.

Here’s the car underlying the Bentley Continental Flying Spur, a low mileage VW Phaeton W12, with enough money left over to buy gas and maintain it for a decade:

I bought a 2004 VW Phaeton V8 last week on ebay for $11,800. Thought for sure I’d have to dump some cash into it immediately. But no, the diagnostic scan came back clean and it runs like a champ. Even the tire pressure monitoring system works (except on the spare in the trunk).

Agreed. In 2004, I wanted a 1972 M-B cabriolet but they were out of my price range. I settled for a 1993 300 CE cabrio with 40K miles on it. Initially, I was afraid the early 1990's electronics and soft parts would crap out and cost me a bundle. Turns out, after driving it daily for 10 years and over 205K additional…

How about a nice Packard?

Good article, and lots of great replies.

As a fellow assembly language programmer and circuit designer I agree the coding and renovation of the Z80-based system are the easy parts. Finding tiny color CRTs might be hard. And yes, getting your hands on the car for tinkering will be very difficult.

If the nose wheel is down, that's gonna hurt.

Is the nose wheel down? Can't tell from this angle.

Meaningless list due to the fact that most "sporty" Miata owners, myself included own cars that have been modified, sometimes so extensively that the only similarity to stock is the sheet metal.