Thought Exercise: A Car That Can Do Mountains And Highways for Under $10k

In reply to Shavarsh :

Yeah, I've always thought they were super cool. IIRC, Volvo used the same mold for the hatch glass that they did for the 1800es . 

I am not thrilled with the C30/S40/V50 from a serviceability standpoint, but they can be thought of as reliable Mazdaspeed3s that don't rust, so there is that. (Same chassis, just made in Sweden not Japan, and it is amazing how the same design is "best rust protected car" from one continent and "most rust prone car" from the other side of the world)

 C30 was never all wheel drive sadly, if you care about that, but at least all C30s were turbo.  And none of them got the massive brakes, all aluminum suspension, and electronic shocks of the P2R cars.