In the Washington DC area, and probably any high-income urban center, "luxury" cars are the bargains. The status wears off ~way~ before the good does. When we started shopping for something swankier to replace my wife's slightly battered 97' Civic, we looked at e36s first; a 328i, 328ic, an M3 (upon showing the owner a Carfax- "salvage title? what's that mean, "salvage title'?" Saab 9000 turbos, and finally some Audis. All were under $8k, all were silver manual trans cars with low miles from private parties.
Once I drove the M3 it was all over for me. I dropped the search for my wife's car and obsessively scoured for the perfect M3. I ended up going to the Philadelphia suburbs for a 58k miles/one fastidious owner leased then bought CPO/no mods/full service records/silver over black/ '98 M3 coupe w/ manual seats and door locks. $14.3k. Best money I've ever spent on a vehicle.
Now that it's been made "harder edged" w/ STU class prep, I look longingly at both 540i-s and e46 M3-s, particularly the Laguna Seca blue ones...
Finally, we found an Audi A4 2.8 V6 NA Quattro coupe for my wife. It may be the perfect regular daily driver. It's way comfortable, solid like a vault, and has equal handling and horsepower, which if you don't drive like a total dick, is perfectly sufficient. 8 grand.
Around here, you can buy a nice 740i with the M package for about the same money as a similar year Civic EX.
