My wife and I had a child and I decided to sell my corvette as it was just going to sit in the garage most of the time as I needed the ability to pickup/dropoff my kid-o from daycare and my 99 'vette was unable to turn off the passenger airbag. Using the money for selling the vette (16,000) I wanted something that would be in the 20-30k range that would be the ultimate compromise car. It had to be my daily driver, my grocery getter, my canyon carver, fit potentially two kids in the back, my man trip machine for mountainbiking and hiking, and autocross and hpde machine.
My list.
4 doors
Manual
Performance Oriented
Good enough gas mileage
Cheap to Insure
Cheap consumables
As I live 120 miles from anything but a Toyota and Ford dealership, I really wanted to stay away from models that were known to be on the maintenance heavy side of things. I'm all for doing my own work but any warrantee work I would have done at a dealer.
No more than 30k out the door, preferably less.
This car was never going to be used for family outings as we have a much more capable vehicle for that, so that really opened the door to anything that could fit children in the back EASILY. I know there are some 2 door cars where you can fit kids in the back, but I didn't want the hassle of dealing with that EVERY day.
I've owned or currently have:
1989 Toyota Pick Up (sold) that I modified for rockcrawling/offroading, it was no longer capable to be a daily driver, not even for my 10 mile round trip at the time... it was good at being offroad, that was it. Sold that a couple years ago after it being my first car and
being with me for 12 years.
1997 Toyota 4Runner, stock. My wifes car she picked up in college. I wouldn't take it on long trips. It's essentially a beater vehicle. Seats are all cracked, the paint is bad, etc etc. Trying to sell it now actually because we just don't use it after we bought a
2010 Jeep Grand Cherokee. stock, my wifes ride. It's been a great vehicle. My wife loves it and I pretty much just drive it during long trips or when we go play in the snow or outdoors.
1999 Chevrolet Corvette (sold). Basically stock but it was my daily driver for about 7 years. Canyon runs, track days, 4 hour trips... trips to the grocery store.. camping trips to watch ALMS races at laguna seca. I didn't care, I loved that car. Unfortunately, I couldn't fathom just having it sit in the garage everyday and driving the 97 four runner everyday.
So I was looking for a daily that was still fun.
My shortlist:
Older style WRX hatchback
New WRX
VW GTI
Focus ST
Fiesta ST
Used Cadillac ATS
Considered an older M3, but I didn't want to inherit someone else's problems for the same price as a new or gently used car. I bought the vette used, an older man drove it probably as gently as possible in San Diego. I didn't worry about that ride. I do worry about buying an M3 from a "bro" though hah.
I thought about a Chevy Colorado or Toyota Tacoma (used and new) but figured I would miss fun driving way too much and don't need the utility of the truck that often.
Focus ST: Fast! I had no clue how fun fwd could be. My friend owns one, so he let me drive it... I was impressed. I like that the seats folded down all the way in the back. Didn't like how... big the car felt.
VW GTI: It was nice, but in the end, I was concerned about reliability and the price point for the version I wanted wasn't going to work.
New WRX: WTF? no hatchback... ugh.... I think they look like beefed up corollas. I respect the car... but after checking out the interior, I wouldn't buy one for the price. I don't live somewhere in which I need AWD. Gas mileage wouldn't be as good.
ATS: not as performance oriented, still kinda up there for the used variants.
Fiesta ST: light weight, street legal gokart is all I could think of. Fit the baby. Sips gas. Did everything I needed. I was debating between the focus st and fiesta st as #1 and #2, and eventually the nimbleness and handling is what got me in the fiesta.
If I were to go back in time, I wouldn't change a thing. The car is too fun, best bang for the buck without a doubt.