christ-on-a-stick

As Queen said, "I'm in love with my car"!!!

This MINI

Don't know what it qualifies as... it's sporty but not a coupe... 2 door but has 4 seats.... but it goes vroom VROOM!!!!

Daggah

You take that supercar. I'll take a fraction of that cost and buld this supercar. With the right mods...it can push a helluva lot of horsepower.

I can't wait for the day a Lancer Evo VIII with the right mods pulls up beside Putney's POS Mustang Cobra...I wish I could be there to see the priceless expression on his face when he realizes...

...he just got schooled by a four-door.

Ramen

Hi COAS,

My Car and Driver New Car Guide '03 classifies the Mini as a sports car. But the magazine chose to lump coupes, sport cars, GT cars and 3 door hatchbacks in the same category.

The Mini could be classified as a hatchback or a coupe/sports car, whichever you see it as.

Piggy

Badfish

Hey! I take that personally! That's no way to talk about your fellow Spokanians.

Actually your right, they don't drive very well, there's always an accident on the way to and from work it seems.

Badfish

That works too. It's Mopar or no car for me.

Mopar in general is the Godhead so to speak of Musclecars.

Kilted Canuck

I need a car that has enough room to lug my highland snare drum in, and most sports cars just don't have that. I'd have to go with a nice sedan such as the Ford Focus, which, if modified, has almost as much power as a sports car, but enough room.

godfry n. glad

I like vehicles that require the minimum in upkeep and repairs and when they do need it, it doesn't cost an arm and a leg. It needs sufficient power to manage the hills while keeping up with traffic, but still manages to log decent mpg fuel efficiency...like more than 20 mpg around town...and has enough room to haul antique furniture, garden additions and/or multiple passengers in comfort.

That has led me to the Toyota Siena van which I currently own. (Yes, I know, that makes me the single van person responding to the poll so far...and I'm child-free, no less.) Aside from the automatic transmission which I'm not thrilled with (but had no choice), the only frustrations have been some minor mechanical problems (passenger side sliding door latch and the damned seatbelt takeup mechanisms) that refuse to stay repaired. Regular maintenance and parking it in front of the house whilst I commute by bus to work helps extend the working life of all my vehicles. The fact that it's a van means no hunkering down to climb in or out, like in all those Japanese sedans.

My prior vehicle was a Toyota Corolla All-Trak station wagon. I traded it in at nine years and barely 50,000 miles when I bought the Siena. The All-Trak was a great car and I had zero problems with it, but it was just too small for my purposes. And...When I bought the thing, I thought I'd need the 4-wheel drive capacity to get to work in the winter in the Columbia River Gorge, a site of frequent surface ice. During the nine years I owned it, I used the 4-wheel drive exactly twice.

godfry n. glad

Stephen Maturin

Good for you, Ms. Ab! The very mention of wagons brings back fond memories of my first car, a mammoth '67 Ford station wagon that bore a rather disturbing resemblance to the Wagon Queen Family Truckster of movie fame. Of course, family and cargo room wasn't a consideration since I was seventeen years old, living under my dad's roof and dirt poor (having just spent all my money on a '67 Ford station wagon). However, it turned out to be the perfect set 'o' wheels for virtually all the demented shit that interested seventeen-year-old boys back in the day. Plus, it was closer to indestructible than any vehicle I've ever had.

As to fantasy wish list stuff, Corwin is absolutely correct about the '71 hemi 'Cuda being the Grand High Exalted Mystic Ruler of muscle cars. Hell, Chrysler Corp. was cranking out red hot muscle cars faster than you could keep track of them back then. A buddy managed to get his hands on a '70 Road Runner (440 6-pack) that we spent countless hours turning into a veritable chariot of the gods. Wouldn't mind having one of those, either.

For sheer looks, gimme a '63 split window Corvette. Yeah, I know - Chevys were "field cars", of no earthly use beyond pulling plows or spreading manure, but damn, the '63 Vette looks good! Such a car would probably never leave the garage, if for no other reason than men of my advanced age tend to look silly tooling around in them. But it'd be a fine toy to have nonetheless.

Okay, enough of that. Time to unhand Mr. Happy and return to the real world. I actually drive a Saturn SL2, a reliable, fuel-efficient car that I've been very happy with. There's much to be said for coming to terms with one's own dweebishness.

lisarea

Station wagons are perfect cars. They handle like cars, but you can also haul 90% of the stuff you'll ever need to haul in them, and they also make you invisible to cops.

I've got a Hyundai wagon right now, but I don't much like it. I'd like to get a well-maintained Volvo 240 wagon. I had a 240 sedan for several years, and man alive, that was a cool car. Fun fact, too: Volvos are powerful cars. Volvo drivers just tend to have a little more restraint than others, so you'd never know. Every now and again, though, I'd kick in the servo motor and blow some asshole's doors off just to be mean.

Cars don't do much for me beyond the practical considerations, with the exception of Chevy Nomads and mid-sixties Thunderbirds. I want a black 64 with suicide doors. Having one of those is almost like being Batman, I figure.

Worldtraveller

Alright, I'll bite...
I own a Toyota Rav4, love it, except for the one transmission problem I had... (don't get me started)
It gets 30 mpg, and I can still take it camping down to the beaches in Mexico with all my SCUBA gear.
Preferred mode of commuting is 2 wheels, gimme a motorcycle any day! They outperform just about every car on the raod, and STILL get better mileage!
I had no transportation other than my bicycle for the better part of 8 years, and still managed to put 10k miles a year on it....
Although for simple economy, you can't beat the public transportation system here in Europe....