Top Ten Cars to Get for Your Daughter's First Car.
Fair is fair, right? So here goes!
1. VW New Beetle convertible. Hands down. Gotta be the penultimate teenaged girl's car. Flower vase on the dashboard. Cute retro styling. Room for her and three of her friends (and not a lot of trunk space for coming back from the mall...)
2. Toyota MR2. Sporty, stylish, reliable, and cute. How much more perfect could this be for a girl's first car? Just don't let her brother drive it...
3. Land Rover Freelander. Bulletproof four wheel drive. Removable rear roof for open air fun. And where it's a Land Rover, it'll be in the shop too much for her to get in trouble with it (I kid, I kid)...
4. Mazda Miata. Really, is there any reason to say any more about this car? It practically defines cute... It also has the benefit of only being a two-seater, so she can only bring one gossiping friend to distract her.
5. Ford Escape. This is the "economy" version to the Freelander, an affordable small SUV that she won't be embarassed to drive, yet will offer better winter traction control and plenty of hauling space for sports or band equipment.
6. Honda Civic coupe. Reliable. Cute. Honda. How could you possibly go wrong with this choice? The car is sporty, but practical. It's good on gas and easy to park. Really, this would make a fine first car for either a boy or girl...
7. VW Cabrio. This was pretty much the de rigeur girl's car to have before the New Beetle came out in a convertible version. Cute, drop-top with German engineering. Sounds like Marlene Dietrich...
8. Volvo S40. For the dad obsessed with safety, the S40 is a good choice. It's a Volvo ("Boxy! But safe!"), so it'll basically withstand a direct nuclear hit. It's a
*thanks Brad!
9. Jeep Wrangler. Also a vehicle that's good for a son or daughter, and for the same reasons - good in the snow, fun in the sun. And the 4-cylinder version ain't racin' NOTHIN'. (I know. Sis G. had one. I remember driving it on the highway at 60 MPH with the engine SCREAMING...)
10. Subaru Impreza. Another entry in the "cute but practical" list. It's a Subaru, so it's great in inclement weather, will run forever if not abused (hence why it's not on the "son" list), and can be picked up used for a reasonable price.
There's my Top Ten Cars to buy your daughter for her first car. BabyGirl G. will not be getting a car when she is of driving age, as she will have no need of one in the convent...
That is all.
10 comments:
Jay,
Good list, however you should check your map. As a former volvo owner, I can attest to the fact that Volvo is based in SWEDEN, not Germany. Unless of course the s40 is built in Germany under license from Volvo, which is entirely another matter.
- Brad
There's a lot of possibilities that fit this role. How about a 1974 Cadillac DeVille? Huge, heavy, designed to survive an accident with those little metro cars by just driving over them. And lots of room in the back for her grandmother to ride along.
If it was my daughter, I'd want her in a tank, with both grandmothers and a nun.
I presume whatever it is, it will have remote GPS tracking ....
Mrs. Borepatch says that it's a good thing we only have boys, because I would be the Father From Hell.
Ans ASM826, what about a Bradley Fighting Vehicle? It would have enough room for the squad of chaperons. ;-)
Thanks Brad.
The problem with the Caddy is the ginormous back seat.
I know what happens in ginormous back seats.
And I'd really hate to have to saw through the roof of a vintage '74 Caddy to remove the spine of some horny teenager.
Because that's a lot of repair work, and roofs are notoriously hard to fix right...
Jay,
No thanks needed. And I can attest to the outlandish repair bills. Just general maintenance was pricey. The worst part of my 850 was the AIR pump. Volvo saw fit to place the pump, and the relay which controlled it, in the bottom of the engine bay. Every time we drove through a puddle, snowbank, whatever, the relay got wet and the pump ingested water. I replace that pump FOUR times in eight years, at over $900 a shot. And don't even get me started about fixing the AC .. when the dryer needed replacement, I let the system stay dead. Volvo saw fit to locate the dryer under the dash - replacing it required removal & replacement of the dash: 11 hours of labor at $94 per hour. The 850 was a nice car, handled well, was GREAT on the highway, but it was a money sucking vortex to beat the band.
- Brad
Old Volvo or Mercedes.
Built like tanks and full of safety, and when she wrecks it it will be cheaper to replace than doing the airbags on a new car.
Plus most of them don't go very fast compared to modern cars, or get there very quickly.
(Parts are not super cheap, as Brad notes, but the savings compared to any new car make paying for them pretty easy... and I believe the 240 is supposed to be saner to work on than the 8xx. Much like the 123/4/6 Mercs are easier than the 114/5/6s.)
"My" first car (was actually my mom's, but she hates driving so I drove it 9/10ths of the time) was an LTD Country Squire station wagon. V8, leather seats...really all a girl could want.
(So it wasn't the Dodge Neon everyone else was driving. So what? I could not only smoke 'em in a road race, I could do so by driving over them.)
Make the Escape the hybrid version, and she'll feel all green and get bonus points from all her liberal friends!
I agree with Sigivald. I had a Volvo 244GL. Built like a box, fairly easy to maintain (better that the 850s), 2.4 l engine will keep you on the autobahn, but you won't be breaking any landspeed records.
- agg
BTW - have you done a list of the best cars to make out in?
No. 1 requirement for a car for your daughter?
It has to be too small for her to lay down in.
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