In Need of a new car.

I really need a new car. I sold my Civic Hatch for college tuition and have been driving a `87 Ford Tempo for the summer. I have got to get a new car bad. I have about $8K and here are my choices.

`95-`98 Civic Hatch
`88-`91 CRX
`86 or `87 Corolla GTS
`91-`95 240SX
`90-`94 180SX
I want to make a daily driver that I can drift and drag anytime I want. I just need some help choosing.

Out of those I would choose the 240sx. It's a very popular drift car and can become quite quick. You want rear wheel drive for drifting so forget the civic and crx. I also wouldn't get a corolla just becuase the other choices are so much newer. Good Luck in your search.

just curious as to why a 4th gen prelude isn't on there, you can get one under 8k

With $8,000, you can do a lot better than that list. Seeing as you are in college, I am not going to take driving experience into consideration, so here is a better list for 8 thou:

1. Porsche 914, or 928. Considered the poor man's Porsches, but oh well, will kill the 240SX in handling, rarity, looks. All around cooler car. Not much aftermarket, and expensive repairs though. Both RWD

2. 2nd gen Toyota MR2 GTS. RWD, 241 HP, Reliable, relatively cheap insurance, extremely cheap repairs. Sweet looks IMO.

3. BMW 2002. Very sporty, clean cars. Not a monster, but you could find one for around $2,500, and use the rest to mod the hell out of. Believe me, rapidly growing aftermarket.

Go to ebaymotors.com, you will find a ton of sweet-ass RWD cars for under 8,000

Also, if god shed his grace on you, you could find a Lambo Espada for under 8,000. Now that would be SSSAAAAAAWWWEEEEEEEETTT

300zx TT you can get that for under 8Gs.

I thought about the 300 ZX TT, but I think that might be a little too much power there. Especially crusing across a college campus. About the Porsche, I saw a 944 I believe for sale around here. I will get to looking for a 240 SX and MR2 GTS (might be a little small for a six foot tall guy), but how far can you take the 240 SX in the area of body mods?

Well, in all the drifting comps I have seen, the 240 SX's all have pretty wild bodies. A lot of people chop the glass on the hatch which kinda make it look like an El Camino (pretty sweet), mild body kits, crazy paints looks good on a 240, wheels (gotta have 'em), window tints, dual-exaust convertion, take out the rear seats and put a massive system in, race seats, race gauges, shift kit, etc.

Also, have you ever thought of a RWD Datsun/Nissan pickup, they have lots of room, they are light, and you can easily swap a Chevy 350 small block, then you will be runnin' high-low 11's all night long.

I would like to stay away from trucks. One more thing to add about the 300 ZX. My friend had one and one day while doing 80 mph on the freeway he tried to switch lanes and the rear tires lost traction. The damn thing flipped seven times, but thank God that he came out unharmed. That's one reason why I want to stay away from the 300Z.

I have done the research on the 240ZX and the popular thing to do is to add Skyline power to them. This already means that the 240ZX is out of the question. So, here is my new little list of possible options that I can possibably pull off.

200 SX with SR20DET

Civic/CRX with B18C, B20B, or the H22 SiR

MR2 with 3S-GTE

AE86 with 4AGZE 16V or 4AG 20V

Eclipse AWD with 4G63

The two that I am mainly leaning towards are the Civic/CRX and the MR2 (even though I haven't found one yet). Also that Porsche 944 is selling for $12K so it is a no no. These are the ones I have to choose from and I have given up drifting. I will stick to drag and road racing.

I personally would go with the mr2 out of your new list. It will have superior handling capabilites for road racing and it's a lot more unique.