Fill Your Dream Garage: Three Slots, $25,000 Budget

Personally- my dream garage won't carry any daily drivers, they can live in the driveway.

1.  2002 F350 7.3 Powerstroke 4x4.  Tow rig and the last truck you ever need to buy.  $8500.

2.  1989 Porsche 944.  $10,000

3.  2000 BMW 540 m-sport (6 speed) with some miles.  $6500

Done.

1) NA Miata, any year. Torsen, VVT motor swap, caged, seat and harness, nice suspension. $15,000

2) NA Miata, any year. Nice suspension. $7,000

3) NA Miata, any year. Torsen and snow tires. $3000

For an appliance, Japanese SUV, 4Runner or GX 470.

For traveling, German Tourer with manual trans 3 or 5 series BMW and 15 years old.  Or Porsche or Lexus

Track car, 7 clone, MR2, Miata, Mustang, corvette, something ratty and fast.

Current garage has mostly none of these.  Expedition, Mazda5, Mustang, but the Mustang is not a ratty track car.  I do however have a ratty mustang Lemons car.

Mr-s, 1198 Ducati, 89-95 hilux. 

Can I have a time machine?

..

S60Rs are berking awesome and still trading about $6k...

earlybroncoguy1 said:

25K is not going to buy anybody's "dream" car.

Well, maybe.  What do 106 Rallyes sell for?

Isuzu Impulse Turbo

Saab 9-3 Turbo

Volvo C30 T5

And enough left to buy Isuzu parts.

I would find the cleanest 79 4dr malibu left, preferably in white

100series Land Cruiser

and a red NA miata for the wife

akylekoz said:

For an appliance, Japanese SUV, 4Runner or GX 470.

For traveling, German Tourer with manual trans 3 or 5 series BMW and 15 years old.  Or Porsche or Lexus

Track car, 7 clone, MR2, Miata, Mustang, corvette, something ratty and fast.

 

Current garage has mostly none of these.  Expedition, Mazda5, Mustang, but the Mustang is not a ratty track car.  I do however have a ratty mustang Lemons car.

 

 

Wait you say Dream garage?  That means I can choose from my heart not from what will serve me well.

Appliance  -  Land Rover, in my dreams everything works all the time.  Best one I can get for cheap, that will get a super nice 2001.

Traveling -  BMW or Benz with a V12 or TT V12, see rover dream, these will all be as solid as an LS400.

Track car - Maybe a turbo Miata or Supercharged Vette ratty and fast, see above. 

DD - Old Japanese car or small truck or MGB or BiTurbo, or any old Maserati.

In reality these can all be had for $25k.  My reality is that I need at least two reliable vehicles, and prefer the third to be also.

jb229 said:

Isuzu Impulse Turbo

The car of my dreams!  Freddy Krueger style.

That's the car that swore me off of piston engines for a good six or seven years, and it was another decade before I thought about trying to own a turbo engined car. 

Beautiful car, but horrific engineering, unless you are a fan of cracked cylinder heads because of the siamesed exhaust valves and the tiny turbo parked right there to concentrate even more heat there.

(backstory: $3000, five head gaskets, and two cylinder heads after I acquired a nonrunner, I got it running long enough to drive to the emissions test center and back!  Got a ride to the shop so I could drive it home, and then... it cracked the cylinder head again.  Beautiful car, but I wished it ran)

Forgiving that I have more than 3 cars already...if I could only keep 3 it would be:

1. my 1974 914 $700

2. my 1971 Opel GT $3200

3. my 2003 Tacoma ~$6000

That leaves $15,100 to modify the Opel and Porsche.

Perfect.

Halfway decent Karmann Ghia - ~10k

Opel GT - 3.2k

Mk1 Audi TT - ~6.5k

Jaguar X308 Super V8
67 LeMans Convertible (got it)
4x4 Camper Van (working on it)

So three cars for 25K, okay I'll play that game 

1967 Triumph TR4A (just picked it up two weeks ago for 7K) - Yeah, was a really good deal that I could not pass up, runs, drives, new interior, but bad paint 

1980 Triumph TR8 (purchased last fall for 8K) - Another good deal, completely restored mechanically, rebuilt engine, with a powder coated suspension, koni shocks, and a new interior, just needs paint to make it perfect - no rust!

2000-2001 Porsche Boxster S - 10K for one needing some work

Don't have one but need one 

Funny, I have an extra car, but pretty much meet the criteria if I were to take one out.

2007 Ford Expedition - bought for about $8k

1994 KBS MK7 F500 racecar. $8k with trailer and all spares.

Either/or   1961 Bugeye sprite OR 1997 Mustang Cobra.  

• Mustang bought for over budget, but owned for almost 20 years now. Present value something like $10k
• Bugeye bought for way under budget, but lots of parts and work put into it, present insured value is $10k

Question is, do you want the weekend car to be a slow vintage convertible, or a faster V8 ponycar with Aircon.  Both have a place for me.   Thing is, I like having a purpose built racecar and I like it to be fast. F500 is the cheapest way to get there for RR. Drawback is that it is open wheels and that limits things like trackdays, you pretty much go straight to W2W. Theres a place for that slot #3 being a nicer Miata or something for trackdays, though I could do that with the Mustang, I just adhere to not taking something I care about like that car to the track. (it was MY first car that wasnt me borrowing my parents and its a 60k mile creampuff).

of course, this all disregards my wifes car. But her car is her car. 

It is a dream garage, so no transportation appliances or wife's truck unless that is part of your dream.

In thinking it through, I had to pare down my crazy number of cars and eliminate expensive ones like the MSM.  So if was kind of fun to see that I would keep the TR8 and the TR4A and what I then buy for the remaining 10K.  If not the Porsche, then an Alfa GTV6, but they are hard to find for 10K for a good one.

dherr (Forum Supporter) said:

It is a dream garage, so no transportation appliances or wife's truck unless that is part of your dream.

In that case:

Santa Cruz Bronson or Nomad

Santa Cruz Tallboy

Whatever the CAM equivalent Miata is

2021 pricing? Gack!

V8 New Edge Mustang, no engine or transmission.

2006 GMC 2500 van with 6.0L and 4L80e.

$5000 Toyota Camry to daily drive while shuffling the two previously mentioned crap cans into one car.

Three $8,333.33333333333 Z32 300ZXs...........

I'd go with:

1) E46 M3 - $13k  - Edit: looks like prices on these have jumped way up since I last looked - so I'll settle for an e90 6spd (non-turbo).

2) Our current '06 Rav4 V6 - $4k

3) Honda Ridgeline - $8k

I can't remember the last time I craved a car I don't already have.  Old, tired, lame, I guess.

I might buy a slightly less aged xc90 to replace my 03, then I'd spend the rest of the money to build a fresh engine for my 82 Camaro, finish the paint on the 67 Camaro, paint my B13 Sentra, and get going on  my PL510.

Ha.  I just did a millennial thing and called my 510, which needs no explanation,a PL.

Fun.

Edit: Begs the question, has anybody seen an HL510 in the last 25 years?

Its a tough question. Do I pick things I've had and like or different stuff I've always dreamt about?

1987 Monte Carlo SS with a manual trans swap (10K)

1997 GMC 1500 RCSB 305 5-speed for truck stuff (5k)

1967 Firebird. It will be ratty at this price but I want one... (10k)

I’m going to leave out straight up race cars because those are disposable.

Fiesta ST, in that awesome orange color. Everyone needs a hot hatch.

LS swapped bubble body Caprice wagon for utility and cruising.

A decent later 944, because Porsche.

Might be able to make that happen with $25k