Besides the Porsche, I have the ‘other’ car. This is my regular driver that doesn’t get to stay in the garage, lives quietly out at the curb, does the daily commuting, the errands, the regular stuff. I’m passionate about this car --- I only have so much seat time, in this life ---- so I chose this car carefully.
Criteria for the ‘other’ car are these:
1) Reliable, durable, and well-made --- good for 200k mi or more
2) Cheap to fix and maintain
3) Fun to drive, with excellent handling, road-holding, and braking
4) Fuel efficient --- at least 25mpg overall
5) Room for four, with a useable trunk
6) Cheap to buy --- $5-$10k
Costs are a big issue: depreciation, maintenance, insurance, etc. To put it another way, the money I don’t spend on my ‘other’ car goes into other things, like the Porsche.
My 'other' cars are also a guilty pleasure. Like mutts, B-movies, and roads-less-travelled . . . I love cheap cars. My daily drivers cost less than what a new 'medium-priced' car will depreciate in a year. (Or 6 months!) I go to some trouble to search out my 'other' cars, so I think they're special but, to most people --- they're invisible. To me, there's something endearing about these machines, toiling away, racking-up some huge miles, just quietly doing their job. It's also a special thrill, to look for and find some off-the-wall transpo that I can have fun driving the wheels off of, then sell for what I paid for it, a couple-of-hundred-thousand miles later.
I don't drive junk. Their cosmetics or aesthetics may be a little sketchy, but all my 'other' cars have to work for a living, and hard. I remember one Bug I put 80k miles on --- in 18 months! But, not only are the 'other' cars functional, a lot of them have been pretty interesting, for themselves. And always fun. My ‘other’ cars have included a ’65 Corvair Monza, a ’65 VW 1500S ‘Notchback,’ a ’69 Camaro RS350, and three of these: the BMW 318iS.
The ’91 e30 318iS is a one-year car, and the last BMW sold in this country with a base-price under $20k. That was a LOT of money back in ’91 ---- especially for a 4-cylinder. Its 136-hp M42 engine previewed the base power-plant that would go into the then-still to-come Z3. BMW would put this same basic motor in their next-generation 3-series, but, except for the TI models, those cars would weigh at least 200lbs more. The e30 version isn’t exactly powerful or quick, but it is a ball to bomb around in, gets 30MPG, and only needs fluids, filters, and tire rotation to keep going. I don’t know who bought these cars when they were new, but not many have come through in decent condition. After 19-years, it’s tough to find any clean, useable e30, especially the last ‘cheap’ one.
I got lucky. I bought this particular car three years ago in Tucson, with 34k mi on it. I saw it on AutoTrader, then drove out and tested it, but passed on it, at first ---- too much money. I’d found another one in Texas, and was headed out there, when the Seller called me back, dropped his price, and we did a deal. There were some hose and gasket issues, but once those were fixed, like all the other e30s I’ve owned, this has been a great car.
This car isn’t stock. It started-out as the back-up for a Real M3 that I was tweeking on, but I ended up doing all the same suspension mods to this car. I've left the mechanicals alone, but all the other mods, plus the brakes and wheels, cost more than the vehicle is worth. This car doesn’t really depreciate any more, or, at least, can't go much lower --- I tell myself that I drive it for free. But money aside, I just LOVE this little car: easy on fuel, bullet-proof mechanically, tidy and comfortable, low-key good-looking --- to me, anyway. And I’ve dialed-in just about everything exactly the way I like it. No power . . . but it corners, stops, and eats up miles like my Real M3 did; huge fun.
And it freed-up the money for a Porsche.
Reply With Quote
