Getting started as a new GRMer in ATL area?

Apologies if this is off-topic. Not sure what forum this belongs in.

Im currently a young mid-late twenties male who lives in NYC and likes cars. That is a recipe for disaster. I've always dreamed of owning/working on/driving cars but due to growing up low income and living in the city that was impossible. I finally got my first car in my early 20s (audi a4 3.0 auto) but it was such a hassle to own and use that the glam quickly wore off. I accepted it's too much of a hassle to own after spending more than what I paid for it in garage expenses insurance and parking tickets in like 4-5 months, and barely got to drive it. When I did get to use it I loved it, I attended some autocross events and would go on long drives upstate whenever I could. I would also go on trips with my friend in his 92 Miata and I had no idea you could have so much fun with 100 hp. 

I work in tech for a decently large company and they recently built a new office in midtown Atlanta. I have the option of relocating there. With all I've read it seems like a great place to live to be a car enthusiast with the weather, race tracks, and still having the ability to have space to keep and work on a car. I've been looking into it and it's something that's constantly on the back of my mind ALL day and I think I want to make the leap. I don't want to look back at 40 in nyc still yearning to have a sports car and experience a track day. I'm also single with no kids. 

If you had to advise someone in their 20s who wanted to learn how to work on cars and become a better driver in the ATL area what would you tell them? Where should I live? What cars should I buy first? 
 

I don't know if they're doing a location salary adjustment but assume annual income is atleast 85k+, very little student debt (less than 10k) with some savings. 

This is my plan so far:

Find a house with 2 car garage with decent commute (maybe around 45 min or so?) to midtown Atlanta. My concerns are finding the right neighborhood (safe/clean mostly). Would like to have decent access to fun things to do since I'm single but I'll weigh my options. 

do the 2 car system of having a reliable daily driver, probably with an auto (I have little experience with driving manual. I do know how but I haven't had a lot of seat time, city traffic in ATL seems pretty bad as well), as well as something for pure fun that I work on like a Miata. Or maybe I just get one that does it all? Thoughts? My logic with the 2 car system is I don't have to worry about working on my car constantly in a new city with my daily driver, and I get a light sports car with cheap consumables like a Miata as my fun car, which should be less strain on the wallet versus a do it all sports sedan or something that is probably a lot more expensive to maintain. 

Start off with autocross events as much as I can, which probably run nearly year round in ATL. Maybe do performance driving school?

Learn to work on car with YouTube videos/online resources. 
 

Any tips/thoughts are helpful. Thank you!!

Do it.  Make the move!

Buy a Miata and an old Pickup truck/SUV   

While in Atlanta hook up with these guys from Hong Norr Racing.  Your life will never be the same.  

Sounds like you're in a pretty ideal position. You're unencumbered and have enough freedom AND werewithal at a young age to make a big life decision to chase one of your passions.  I would go for it. 

There are a lot of opportunities for automobile motorsports in and around ATL.  There is a very active SCCA group that hosts their autocross events at Atlanta Motor Speedway (the NASCAR track) which is south of the city.  There is the best (IMHO) road course in the east at Road Atlanta which is northeast of the city.  Not far from there is Atlanta Motorsport Park (AMP) which is north of town.  Both RA and AMP have many track day (HPDE et al) events.  If you go west, it isn't too far to Barber Motorsports Park which is east of Birmingham AL which is magnificent and a close second to RA, IMHO.  There is also a small track near Barber called Talledega Gran Prix.  Both hold many track day events. Additionally there are many other good venues within a few hours, like Carolina Motorsports, Roebling Road, even Charlotte isn't terribly far.

The Atlanta area is HUGE and HUGELY overbuilt with endless sprawl.  Traffic is hideous.  Posted speed limits are pretty much ignored on the interstates (and there are many), and traffic is pretty much binary; either you are doing 80 with a tractor trailer truck 6" off your ass, or you are stopped due to the endless mishaps and just too many vehicles.  There are many beautiful, excellent, affordable areas around Atlanta, but getting from one of those to anywhere else is always an adventure.  Your 45 minute commute in mid-town might be only a mile or two at any time that could be considered "rush hour" which is pretty much from 5:00 AM to 9 PM, with perhaps a lull at 10:27 AM and 2:49 PM.  There is MARTA if you like public transportation and you could definitely get to mid-town that way from almost anywhere in the metro area.  The metro area is BIG and getting bigger every day.

One nice thing is that you can get anything you could possibly need in or around the Atlanta area.  Summit has a huge distribution center south of town and there are endless tuners and shops in the area.  It is a very car-oriented area.  Once you get out of the ATL metro area, you will find yourself in a very rural, very agricultural, very conservative state.  If you are originally from NYC, you will have some serious culture shock for a while.  The weather is pretty good all year round but it is hot and humid as hell in the summer.  It will surely be a much cheaper place to live than NYC.  It's been a long time since I was single in my 20's, but if I were a car freak as you describe and had the opportunity and an 85K+ salary, a move to ATL from NYC would be pretty attractive.  You only live once!  Come on down, y'all.  Join the madness!

Do it. No downsides. Go!

Living here for 5+ years now, but having spent over 4 previous decades in Philly (I'm a lot older than you, OP), I can give you my perspective.  stukndapast has it right with the local race tracks.  My opinion on the traffic part is that it's overblown hype, relatively speaking.  If you're from NYC, traffic here will seem like nothing.  People drive fast here, but it's no different than in Philly, Boston, New York, name your major city here.  No, tractor trailers don't drive 6" off your ass, at least no more than they would anywhere else.  So don't let that scare you away.  We have rush hours, and they can be gnarly, but welcome to city life.  I'm literally staring out my office window now at a major highway and it's free flowing, minimal cars (it's 1:50pm). 

As for the car scene, I'm too busy to get involved deeply in it.  However, my advise would be to start attending car events.  As noted, attend an autox.  Attend a LeMons race.  Attend a cars and coffee show.  Introduce yourself to people.  Guarantee you'll find tons of people willing to make a connection with you and probably help teach you to work on cars.  A Miata would be a good car to start with, as would any number of older cars if you want to start learning to wrench.  Nice thing about the south is that there's no rust here, so you can get a rust free car for cheap.  Scour CL and look for a super cheap beater that will be plentiful to find in a pick and pull junkyard.  Pulling parts out of a pick and pull is a great way to learn turning wrenches. 

As for what town to live in, besides cars, what do you like?  What do you want?  Do you want to live in a city feel, a country feel, in between?  I live in a very nice, peaceful, quiet and safe suburban area called Dallas or Acworth (I'm right between the two towns), but it may or may not be for you.

Good luck and welcome to the south if you make the jump.  Don't hesitate to PM me if ya'll have questions...see, gotta learn the lingo.  Took me a while to figure out what "Bless your heart" meant.

yeah dude, ATL is pretty sweet. if i wasn't so in love with the auto industry, back in '95 i was >>this<< close to bailing on Detroit.

Thank You everyone for the responses. Reading the comments is making my heart rate go up. Everyone I talk to is telling me to make the move, except the folks that think NYC is the bomb. 
 

I'm not concerned about the traffic. I've seen some horrible stuff in the NYC/NJ area. It's pretty much always gridlock when I would drive out of the city, accidents everyday, mix of crazy drivers going fast and elderly people under the speed limit. Actually its not as bad as I thought it would be, people told me it would be terrible. I learned to drive here so this was my first experience. There are plenty of times during the day and late at night where the traffic is not bad at all. So I cant imagine ATL is too different or worse. 
 

I take public transport everyday so don't mind that at all, if it's easier than driving to get into midtown for work I'm all for it.

As for the area I'd like to live in, if I want to go here for the car culture I definitely need a place with a 1 or 2 car garage. I'd like something in between city and country. So suburban but somewhat dense would be nice. I'm not sure how the city is laid out but I am single and young so preferably someplace that I can go out to meet the ladies at a bar or restaurant without driving for an hour, and have other youngish folks living nearby. Maybe even able to go into the city and catch a taxi back if I have too much to drink. I don't do that often though, even now living in manhattan. 
 

Does everyone else think an SUV plus older light sports car is the best choice? Any recommendations for something not too large? Not a fan of driving a boat, I kind like grand cherokees and 4runners. Preferably good gas mileage and not too bad of a ride, and of course reliable. Don't need an enormous amount of space. Should be easy to find something like that before I move down there and then once I'm there I can find a Miata or something similar. 

I'm 20 years ahead of you  having come down from CT for college and never left.  Don't worry about culture shock, if you find you're having too much there are meetups and support groups for that , honestly it's a melting pot, and for the most part folks are friendly.  I think Southerners do life right having married in, slow down, drink sweet tea, smile, say hello to everyone, try not to take everything too seriously and enjoy life.

All advice above is solid, on car choice to get started - miata or other inexpensive starter, tracks - AMP, RA, BMP, cars and coffee is called caffeine and octane here and is at perimeter mall every first Sunday of the month, karting for cheap seat time, AMP has a karting league and arrive and drive, Andretti is indoor moving to Buford, there is electric karting in Peachtree Corners, Chump and Lemons have teams around, if you want amazing driving roads tail of the dragon is a few hours away, there are some better less travelled equivalents closer north in the mountains.  SCCA Autocross is great and very well run definatley get a start there.  Nascar runs at Atlanta motor Speedway, ALMS or whatever its become runs at Road Atlanta.  There are car clubs all over, and many GRMers.  If you're into off roading there are lots of trails north in the mountains.

As for jobs, once you're here if you want to carry over your career to automotive I'd point out that General Motors has an IT Innovation center here in Roswell, Mercedes Benz is in Sandy Springs, PSA group is moving into Alpharetta, all north of the city and Porsche North America is south near Peachtree City.  Non Automotive, NCR, ADP, Home Depot, Delta Airlines, VMware Airwatch, Georgia Pacific, Georgia Southern, the list goes on and on.

As for where to live, majority of major car stuff is north of the city but some is south.  Traffic is only bad in certain directions at certain times, much on the highway or in areas that have built up without sufficient surface streets which is a lot of the north west and north east suburbs.  There's a lot of gentrification going on in town, especially South of I20.  In all things it really comes down to budget, since you want a garage, there are lots of houses or townhouses with garages just check HOAs for rules on working on them, HOAs can matter.  For commutes, as was posted 45 minutes may only be 2 miles or 60 depending which direction you're moving.  Spend some time on Google Maps to know what you're in for, pay attention to taxes as unincorporated areas can be cheap but lack services.  Generally good school districts carry serious premiums since it's cheaper than private school.  Since it sounds like you have options explore your personal preferences a bit, if you're mobile it won't matter.

Feel free to reach out.

In reply to remfb :

If you can find a place in the suburbs that's near public transportation I'd lean towards that. Keep in mind that 1 car garages make it pretty challenging to do DIY work in them plus typically not much room to store spare parts/general garage stuff. 

Do eett. 

Do it. 

remfb said:

Find a house with 2 car garage with decent commute (maybe around 45 min or so?) to midtown Atlanta. My concerns are finding the right neighborhood (safe/clean mostly). Would like to have decent access to fun things to do since I'm single but I'll weigh my options. 

I had a similar set of requirements when I was single and bought my first house.  It was a 3BR/2BA raised ranch with a big driveway/parking pad, a big garage, a basement shop/storage area--and no HOA.  It was in a nice part of the north Atlanta suburbs (about a 45 min commute to midtown); today houses like that go for about $175K-225K depending on condition, which should be well within your means.

The mountains in north Georgia offer some really fantastic driving roads.  Atlanta Motorsports Park and Road Atlanta are well north of town and are both world class driving experiences.  The autocross scene sticks mainly to the parking lot of Atlanta Motor Speedway, a NASCAR track well south of town.

The locals can give you more current advise than me, but do eeet. 

I will say that 1/4" of ice will berkeley everything up.  Those people don't know nothing about driving in bad conditions.  

There is a pretty interesting effect around NYC. People who live there tend to love it. People who move there tend to love it. It has a lot of things going for it if you're into the art/culture/theater/fashion scenes. People who want to get ouf their small town and disappear into a big city where there are thousands of other people that share their interests move there. There are plenty of jobs.

The people that don't seriously love it wind up moving. Move to Atlanta. Having lived in NYC and knowing what to expect, it'll be easier to move back to NYC if you don't like it in the South since you know what to expect. Having you company located in NYC and having contacts there will further ease any move back there. 

If you want a sensible daily driver, do it all car, get a GTI. Get the DSG equipped one. Really. They get good gas mileage, they're fun to drive and they hold a lot of stuff.

Almost everybody is going to say to get a Miata as your fun car. There are tons of reasons for this: inexpesive upkeep, a great car to learn and build skills in, fun to drive on the stree without breaking all the laws, and so on. Keep in mind that the entire year is convertible weather in Atlanta. If it gets a bit chilly, you turn on the heater and wear a hat when you put the top down. 

 

remfb said:

I take public transport everyday so don't mind that at all, if it's easier than driving to get into midtown for work I'm all for it.

Public transport may be the biggest let-down compared to NYC. The MARTA system is better than some cities but not in the same league as what you've got in New York. There's a decent heavy rail system for certain destinations, but it misses some parts of the city and doesn't extend into certain suburbs like Gwinnett County. There is also a questionable attempt at a street car system whose main use appears to be putting "Hey, we have a street car" in city tourism brochures; it's pretty much useless except for teenagers looking to visit their drug dealer without borrowing the family car.

As for the area I'd like to live in, if I want to go here for the car culture I definitely need a place with a 1 or 2 car garage. I'd like something in between city and country. So suburban but somewhat dense would be nice. I'm not sure how the city is laid out but I am single and young so preferably someplace that I can go out to meet the ladies at a bar or restaurant without driving for an hour, and have other youngish folks living nearby. Maybe even able to go into the city and catch a taxi back if I have too much to drink. I don't do that often though, even now living in manhattan. 
 

That would probably put you somewhere in northern Dekalb, Cobb, or Gwinnett County, at a high level. Each county has sections with their own "personalities" within them. One other thing that may be a bit of a surprise coming from New York is that there aren't that many distinct ethnic neighborhoods here. 

Does everyone else think an SUV plus older light sports car is the best choice? Any recommendations for something not too large? Not a fan of driving a boat, I kind like grand cherokees and 4runners. Preferably good gas mileage and not too bad of a ride, and of course reliable. Don't need an enormous amount of space. Should be easy to find something like that before I move down there and then once I'm there I can find a Miata or something similar. 

You'll have a better chance of scoring a rust-free SUV here than in New York depending on how old it is. Were you planning to tow with the SUV?

remfb said:

I don't know if they're doing a location salary adjustment but assume annual income is atleast 85k+, very little student debt (less than 10k) with some savings. 

I would definitely find this out first. Most COL calculators put Atlanta around 40-45% cheaper on COL. $55k by yourself in Atlanta isn't nearly as appealing.

Assuming the salary stuff works out, I say go for it! I tried hard to get out of Oklahoma when I got divorced and laid off...........but I didn't have the stones to pack up my stuff, put my car on a trailer, and just move to where I wanted to live and try to find a job before my savings ran out.  

Brett_Murphy said:

Keep in mind that the entire year is convertible weather in Atlanta. If it gets a bit chilly, you turn on the heater and wear a hat when you put the top down. 

This is pretty accurate. Over the years here I've dailied two Miatas and my current daily driver is a Boxster. Even on days when it's super chilly in the morning, by afternoon it's often warm enough to have the top down. Note that we do get a lot of rain here though.

It's hard to be a car guy living in Manhattan. I did it for many years and it's very expensive and not much fun. Having said that, there IS a very active car culture if you know where to look. The NY chapter of the BMW CCA is very active,

Between NY and NJ chapters of the big clubs (BMW, Audi, Mercedes, Porsche), there are tons of driving events of all kinds. We run HPDE and race weekends at the "local" tracks: NJMP, Lime Rock, Watkins Glen, and sometimes Monticello or NY Safety Track. There are autocrosses several sites in LI and NJ. In the winter, they co-host ice racing events on frozen lakes in upstate NY as well as NH and VT. Mutliple driving tours and fun rallys, too.

nderwater said:

Brett_Murphy said:

Keep in mind that the entire year is convertible weather in Atlanta. If it gets a bit chilly, you turn on the heater and wear a hat when you put the top down. 

This is pretty accurate. Over the years here I've dailied two Miatas and my current daily driver is a Boxster. Even on days when it's super chilly in the morning, by afternoon it's often warm enough to have the top down. Note that we do get a lot of rain here though.

Guess that depends on your feeling for weather.  I had an NC Miata here and found I didn't enjoy it in mid-August at 4pm while in traffic.  Just too hot for me.

OP, maybe a suburb like Marietta would be a good fit for you.  You can find suburban homes, but it's still densely populated, close to town, has lots of young people, etc....

Dude hit me up! I'm also in my 20's, big car guy (see my projects Datsaniti, Rice Rod, etc), living in ATL and doing young city-dweller stuff. I live in the southside along the MARTA line, which has a bad reputation for crime. But I'm also just a few miles to Midtown, close to a bunch of cool bars, restaurants, and breweries, rarely deal with traffic (hint: it's all on the northside), and only 20 minutes to autocross events at Atlanta Motor Speedway (just south of the city). And it's cheap.

If you live in the northside suburbs like was suggested, you will have safe, cookie-cutter neighborhoods with decent schools and property values. But you'll also have a dreadful commute, be priced out of anything with a decent garage, and have to live so far out that doing city stuff will be a chore. 

If you're unmarried and childless like me, all that stuff doesn't matter and you can live somewhere fun and edgy while you're still young. You are used to NYC, so your threshold for "sketchy" is probably much higher than mine. Specifically I'm in East Point (where Outkast are from), but other areas like Sylvan Hills, Hapeville, West End, College Park can be good options if you need wrenching space. I am renting a 3 BR house with a 2-car garage, enough driveway space to build a $2000 Challenge-winning car , cheaper than any 1-BR apartment you find in Midtown. Yes the houses are older, there is crime, typical urban sketchiness, etc. But my garage is fenced-in, with a locking gate, and I've had zero troubles in the almost 2 years I've been here.

I am also looking for roommates... PM me

I think maschinenbau has it right at your age/situation if you're used to city living.  You can find affordable places with garages and lenient HOA requirements in the transitional neighborhoods. 

The quickest way to hate Atlanta is to move somewhere in the north burbs like Suwannee or Cumming to get a big new house and have to commute to Midtown for work.  Traffic on the I85 and SR400 corridors is TERRIBLE.  I75 is better but still pretty bad if you live out in Acworth or Woodstock.  The only place that MARTA really goes in the north suburbs is Sandy Springs, and it's relatively expensive/stuffy.  I live in East Cobb and love it; just outside the perimeter and 20 minutes to Midtown, nice residential area with lots of green space and good schools.  However I'm also older than you with a stable income and a family.  It's expensive and the HOA's make it very hard to do anything with cars unless it's inside your garage.  The only place in the north suburbs that I would consider for your needs is Smyrna/Mableton or Chamblee/Tucker.  You can get a lot for a fair price, and the drive to midtown isn't bad.

It's a great city in general, and a great motorsports city.  80% of the people you meet are not from Atlanta or even the south, so don't worry about the "northerner living in a southern city" thing.  It has most of the big city things you're used to in NYC, with less of the chaos and population density.  The local Miata community is very active, there are several guys that sell parts cheap and lots of owners who track and autocross them.  I would not want to daily drive one in the summer though, the heat is pretty brutal.

maschinenbau said:

Dude hit me up! I'm also in my 20's, big car guy (see my projects Datsaniti, Rice Rod, etc), living in ATL and doing young city-dweller stuff. I live in the southside along the MARTA line, which has a bad reputation for crime. But I'm also just a few miles to Midtown, close to a bunch of cool bars, restaurants, and breweries, rarely deal with traffic (hint: it's all on the northside), and only 20 minutes to autocross events at Atlanta Motor Speedway (just south of the city). And it's cheap.

If you live in the northside suburbs like was suggested, you will have safe, cookie-cutter neighborhoods with decent schools and property values. But you'll also have a dreadful commute, be priced out of anything with a decent garage, and have to live so far out that doing city stuff will be a chore. 

If you're unmarried and childless like me, all that stuff doesn't matter and you can live somewhere fun and edgy while you're still young. You are used to NYC, so your threshold for "sketchy" is probably much higher than mine. Specifically I'm in East Point (where Outkast are from), but other areas like Sylvan Hills, Hapeville, West End, College Park can be good options if you need wrenching space. I am renting a 3 BR house with a 2-car garage, enough driveway space to build a $2000 Challenge-winning car , cheaper than any 1-BR apartment you find in Midtown. Yes the houses are older, there is crime, typical urban sketchiness, etc. But my garage is fenced-in, with a locking gate, and I've had zero troubles in the almost 2 years I've been here.

I am also looking for roommates... PM me

This is the kind of info I was looking for. I grew up in the Bronx so I'm used to "sketchy" and keeping my wits about me, and it's honestly never been that bad, atleast its got some character. Recently gentrifying but affordable and close to the city sounds like a win to me, sounds a lot like the first apartment I moved into here in NYC. Ive been reading a lot about the northern suburbs but it seems like all families and its 45 min into midtown with no traffic so I don't know. Seems like Atlanta has LA levels of traffic into the city and driving bumper to bumper with the 9-5 crowd for that long might get old. 

BTW those are some sick projects!, how the heck did you get so talented building stuff? Just tinkering and messing about?

I got a pretty substantial raise today and I'm probably up for promotion end of this year. I may wait till after that to move, I will discuss with management but I dont want to affect a potential promotion by leaving the entire team and being by myself in Atlanta. I figure also if I get a raise again for promotion by the time I have them adjust for COL down here I should still end up pretty well off. Throughout the year I will take a few trips to Atlanta and check it out, maybe meet with some GRMers hopefully to see if it's someplace I want to be.

Also, Thank you for all the responses everyone! I didn't think I'd get this much attention, I've gotten some very valuable information here. I've been reading this forum for awhile and was always impressed with the quality of posts here, not just compared to other car forums but even other forums in general. 

ShinnyGroove said:

The only place in the north suburbs that I would consider for your needs is Smyrna/Mableton or Chamblee/Tucker.  You can get a lot for a fair price, and the drive to midtown isn't bad.

Assuming the job is actually in downtown Atlanta rather than a vaguely-defined Atlanta area, those are definitely excellent north-suburbs choices. I grew up in Tucker myself, and it's a dense suburb like what you describe you're looking for. The Tucker-Chamblee area has some parts that feel like a small Southern town, parts that are the college town atmosphere around Oglethorpe University, and parts where I've given up trying to count how many different languages the signs are in.

remfb said:

Also, Thank you for all the responses everyone! I didn't think I'd get this much attention, I've gotten some very valuable information here. I've been reading this forum for awhile and was always impressed with the quality of posts here, not just compared to other car forums but even other forums in general. 

There's a pretty substantial Atlanta contingent here. There used to be a running joke here, similar to "The answer is Miata", that every interesting Craigslist project car find was in Atlanta. We even had a thread speculating about why this happened.