I'd have twenty cars if I could afford it. Three is a good compromise in my mind. One for doing normal people things, one for going briskly, and another for going where the others can't. I'd love to add one for top-down motoring, but I have nowhere to put any more cars. I'm already looking crazy with two street-parked, a camper in my driveway, and my garage filled with my car, motorcycles, and parts.
The salt/daily driving with harsh winters and road chemicals kicks the **** out of cars here.
My philosophy:
- Relatively cheap daily driver that's disposable at the end of its term (buy a newer used car and drive it ~10 years max then ditch it and repeat).
- Fun weekend toy/classic that is fairweather only and garage kept
- Track toy to go buckwild with and get the speeding out of your system. This keeps you from modding the weekend toy as much and away from tickets.
- Lifted Jeep with a 4.0L for off-roading/camping.
For me it comes down to financials at the moment. I currently have the Focus ST as the "one size fits all" which I just paid off. The long term strategy is to keep the ST till it rots away and pick up a weekend sports car some time in the next 3-5 years. I love the ST as a daily driver and have modded it while keeping it tame for DD use but I still have the want for something more exciting for specials trips or potential track use.
Heavy towing? You might want a large truck for that, but daily drive something less cumbersome.
Difficult off-road use? You might want something highly capable of off-road driving, but daily drive something that is nicer on the road.
Cruising around in an RV? You probably do not want the RV as your daily driver when you are at home.
Track driving? You may find a Miata not very comfortable or practical in regular driving.
On the other hand, just carrying cargo bigger than what fits in a sedan may lead you to a hatchback or station wagon that can do it all with minimal compromise.
Our timing has been messed up with life changes so right now we just have two practical ones.
Corolla = wife's, road trip car
Yaris = my commuter, hauls bulky things
My next will be something fun - I either want a well-kept MR-S or older Miata, or an ND or S-FR or whatever the new small Toyota sports car ends up being. I'd love to live somewhere with good enough mass transit that we could have one fun car.
Our timing has been messed up with life changes so right now we just have two practical ones.
Corolla = wife's, road trip car
Yaris = my commuter, hauls bulky things
My next will be something fun - I either want a well-kept FR-S or older Miata, or an ND or S-FR or whatever the new small Toyota sports car ends up being. I'd love to live somewhere with good enough mass transit that we could have one fun car.
Something like this. Except we have a Civic and Corolla. Ideally I'd have a Civic or Corolla + 4Runner and Miata, but we only have parking for 2 right now and we're both driving 30k+ a year. Hoping to move and buy a house within the next year so we'll see what happens.
I tried the do it all car.. didn't like the result. If I'm just going to have one I'd prefer to have one focused (sports) car and pick up a rental from time to time when I need a different set of capabilities (only really comes up when I need more room to move things about)
I've had up to 10 cars at once. Normally I like multiple cars for multiple roles. My daily driver isn't going to pull the 35 ft travel trailer, and the tow rig wont' be a fun backroads carver. And I don't want to drive the fun car every day. Also, the 2 door convertible is great for weekend fun drives, but the sedan is better for inclement weather commuting and errand running. I tried the one car for everything and was quite annoyed by the lack of being good enough in any one area.
My e30 is the fast n' fun car... and nice weather daily
The e34 Touring is the DD for all the other days, and being a wagon it is the "haul stuff/road trip car".
Only issue with both of them is that they are more or less confined to paved surfaces. Which is why I'm hoping to be in the market for some older truck/suv thing for off-road capability and some light towing.
The only single car of recent that has my attention and may be able to check all those boxes for me is the Volvo v90CC. But at the current price it is far from being in the cards at the moment.
Voted for two. Assuming you can afford it, there are lots of good reasons to have one "normal" car, then one that can be a toy or winter beater.
Right out of college in Minnesota, I had a CRX Si as a winter beater, and it made a great autocross car too - probably since rust made it lighter than stock :laugh:
Elantra - Reliable daily for my wife. Put gas and oil in it and drive it and don't think about it.
BMW 530 - Enjoyable daily driver that is mostly reliable and fun to drive.
Suburban - Hauls the family, maybe a trailer and a ton of stuff. Super roomy vacation-mobile.
Dodge Ram - haul heavy things and people in comfort.
Scout - River rat. dirty 4x4
Camaro - Good old American Muscle
Bug - Classic fun, Family heritage
'31 Chevy Truck - pre-war classic with yard work duties to keep it lubed and running.
I'm definitely a multi-car kinda guy. As someone else in this forum once said (the last time this idea was discussed): "When you're a car guy, what's better than having one car? Having two cars. And what's better than having two cars? Having five cars."
Personally, five cars is right about at my personal sweet spot for happiness.
Put me in the multiple car category. Each car serves a host of needs...
Mazda3 - wife's car, our trip car, and my occasional commuter when the M3 is down
Frontier - hauler, flex car for if one of the others isn't available for whatever reason (repairs, someone else needs the Mazda, etc)
M3 - my fun car, autocross/track car, DD, 'other' trip car (already taken it to Watkins Glen, will be taking it to NJMP this weekend).
The bike sees a few thousand miles a year, mostly commuter miles, but that makes only a small dent in our annual miles.
Ironically I've put the most mileage on the M3 recently: 6k in 6 months of ownership, including 2 months down for a head gasket repair. I suspect that this is not the making of a long term solution, but it's how it is at the moment.
With the amount of miles that my wife and I drive (50k+ annually) having a fleet of rotating cars means less wear on any single car. I like to think that would justify the extra insurance ($30/mo for the M3) and repair costs, which I treat as a hobby cost anyway.
I don't know where I stand on this. I have three cars and all of them could be considered "do it all" cars. The least practical of the bunch can still hold four adults, pick up my kid, and be a serviceable commuter for me.
I obviously like the specialized route but I also like redundancy and a certain amount of overlap. But my insurance bill is $400/mo...
My goal is to get a project car to build for the track eventually, enter auto x events and local hill climbs, something cheap like a older 90's Toyota or Honda I can swap and build up for cheap and pound the tar out of lol.
I do like a spirited daily driver though.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Related Threads
?
?
?
?
?
Ask a question
Ask a question
VW Vortex - Volkswagen Forum
84.4M posts
1.5M members
Since 2001
A forum community dedicated to all Volkswagen owners and enthusiasts. Come join the discussion about performance, builds, modifications, classifieds, troubleshooting, maintenance, new releases, and more!