Feel like living dangerously? How about an 80's Mercedes? Probably at the bottom of the depreciation curve. I have seen these things in the $3K-$5K range. An old German luxury car, what can go wrong?
californiamilleghia said:Triple White Rabbit Cabriolet , thats what all the stewardess's had in the 80s around SoCal
I endorse this choice!
Those VW Rabbit verts were not the best built cars, and the body parts are either expensive or unobtainium. Most beginning drivers are going to bump into things, so having affordable parts available would be important to me. That negates the Mazda Capri, Renault, RX-7, etc.
Miata is clearly the answer here. The Celica convertible isn't a bad choice either. Fox Mustang if it's just a 2.3. Fiat 124, MGB, Spitfire, etc are more toys than daily drivers for someone young with no mechanical experience. BMW E30 isn't a bad choice either, as they are surprisingly cheap to fix.
I never recommend tipsy tall vehicles like Jeeps for someone's first car. They just don't handle well enough to be safe for a new driver, IMO.
Be sure to price replacement tops for whatever you are looking at. Some of them are shockingly painful.
Miata or Mustang. Better parts availability, probably, just because there was more of them out there.
Foxbody would have all of the parts support to take it any direction she'd want. Since that's already been covered though, I'm going to throw out an oddball:
Feedyurhed said:Feel like living dangerously? How about an 80's Mercedes? Probably at the bottom of the depreciation curve. I have seen these things in the $3K-$5K range. An old German luxury car, what can go wrong?
I did mention to her mama that we need to look at Euro luxury cars of the era.
Also, I sent this thread to her mom, and looking at the options being presented she is definitely gonna steal the car from the kid for random adventures "to find out what she needs to fix next"
Why not the best of both?
But something like this is easier to work on. 
Mr_Asa said:Feedyurhed said:Feel like living dangerously? How about an 80's Mercedes? Probably at the bottom of the depreciation curve. I have seen these things in the $3K-$5K range. An old German luxury car, what can go wrong?
I did mention to her mama that we need to look at Euro luxury cars of the era.
Also, I sent this thread to her mom, and looking at the options being presented she is definitely gonna steal the car from the kid for random adventures "to find out what she needs to fix next"
Just some word of advise from someone that owned one.
If its cheap, its going to be very expensive ... if that makes sense. Very easy to work on, unless its the fuel injection.
The drink gas at an incredible rate, I think I would get 12-15mpg and I was not driving like a madman. I had the big V8, but I am sure the others are similar.
I know what the thread title says, but...
Crashworthiness has come a long, long way in 45 years.
2nd generation Volvo C70 retractable hardtop '06-'13 are underappreciated and pretty practical, and the Venn diagram of cheap and safe bears a passing resemblance to the Volvo badge.
Go 4th gen Camaro/Firebird with the 3.8L V6. They are surprisingly inexpensive and can be reasonably daily driven.
I'd stick to something a bit more modern like this, plus the 96/97 cars were OBDII and my young kids like to plug in and research their codes themselves, then come to me with what we should fix. That's been fun. I grew up driving 80's POS's and besides them all rusting away they were not the best cars to crash.
Boxster, non-S?
Not 1980s, but convertible, reasonably reliable, lots of diy info, and P-car status.
Second vote for 2000ish VW Cabrio purely because it actually has airbags. We all want to be cool with our nostalgia but at least get airbags for a teenager. I feel like 2001 or so gets both front and side airbags in addition to rear discs.
No Time said:Boxster, non-S?
Not 1980s, but convertible, reasonably reliable, lots of diy info, and P-car status.
I drive mine all the time, it's not really fast enough to be dangerous and even though it's not a very good example it still really hasn't needed much work. I'd say it would have been hard to find a more reliable car for the price, which I absolutely did not expect when buying it.
GTwannaB said:Second vote for 2000ish VW Cabrio purely because it actually has airbags. We all want to be cool with our nostalgia but at least get airbags for a teenager. I feel like 2001 or so gets both front and side airbags in addition to rear discs.
I do agree with that, however I'd like to reiterate that this would be a project car while she has a more modern, more safer car for her daily.
For a car that is mostly just to be fun to work on, an older car makes more sense. I have never even owned a car newer than 01 but I really prefer working on 70s and 80s cars over anything newer.
GTwannaB said:Second vote for 2000ish VW Cabrio purely because it actually has airbags. We all want to be cool with our nostalgia but at least get airbags for a teenager. I feel like 2001 or so gets both front and side airbags in addition to rear discs.
I survived my teen years driving a 1970 Fiat 124 Spider. It didn't really go fast enough to be very dangerous. Having seen quite a few wrecked ones in the years since, they are pretty safe for a car designed in the 1960s. A Fiat X1/9 is almost a bank vault on wheels, because they were designed to withstand a rollover test the .gov never implemented.
Kids are precious cargo, but they can't go through life ensconsed in bubble wrap. I'd be more worried about getting them proper driver training than what they drive.
MiniDave said:Cheap and cheerful - late 80's Pontiac Sunfire or Chevy Cavalier. Easy to work on, 4cyl so she won't kill herself with HP, actually fun to drive for a 1st fun car.
Yes, but she will kill herself if she bumps it into a mailbox.
My honest suggestion.... nothing. Probably not the right time and an '80s car, especially a vert, is just inviting trouble.
The '80's specifically is a weird time for convertible sales in the US. Fearing strict roll over rules the US intended to impose, but never did, GM killed off their last factory convertible as the '77 Eldorado.
What there was available as convertible in the '80s was some left over euro designs (ie: MGB) and customized aftermarket approaches (ie: Sunchaser.) Domestic manufactures relied heavily of the t-top in this era as "convertible-like" (it is not!)
By the last few years of the '80's it was clear that convertibles could still be a thing in the US and many either chopped them out of house or started again chopping them in-house (ie: Gen3 Camaros were originally chopped out of house for GM.) In late 1989 the Miata was a thing and a huge phenomenon as well as the US hungered for a real convertible.
Not 80's but retro, safe, not too big, reliable: sn95 mustang
Need bonding time? This choice will give you plenty of reasons to spend time together... fixing things.
Fox body Mustang is another good option. Relatively inexpensive and huge aftermarket support.
vwcorvette (Forum Supporter) said:3 series convertible
Rabbit Cabriolet
Dodge Aries Convertible
Alfa Spider
I have a white Turbo LeBaron ragtop with minimal miles that can be purchased.
Also, I should mention, it has not been Honged or Norred in any way.
11110000 said:Need bonding time? This choice will give you plenty of reasons to spend time together... fixing things.
This addresses all of the safety concerns since it will rarely run.
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