Help me choose a Mid-Life Crisis car

In My Humble Opinion
1

OK, I feel my mid-life crisis coming on, and it is time to get an appropriate car for it. I’m in my early 40s and drive a 1999 Toyota Camry (V6, at least).

I have two kids, 6 and 11, but mom has a mini-van, and it isn’t often the kids need to ride in my car.

My primary interest is performance - a real “drivers” car. I can sacrifice luxury and economy in exchange for performance. I will use this car to commute to work each day, but I’m lucky, that will be less than 4 miles roundtrip. Living in metro Atlanta, I would be able to make good use out of a convertible.

I’m expecting to spend around $40K, but could go to $50K and still buy with cash (I don’t care for car payments).

The new Saturn Sky caught my attention. Good looking car. But as I checked the specs, it appears under powered for my tastes. A few years back I owned a Miata - loved it - but the Saturn has even less power than the Miata, and I’m looking for more.

I checked out the Mazda RX8, and it looks under-powered.

The BMW Z4 3.0i also looks under-powered. The Z4 3.0si, at 255 HP, looks plausible, and a new one is still in my price range. But the new Z4 M Roadster, at 330 HP, is more like what I’m talking about, though the new one is over my price range.

Thinking that a small backseat would be useful, even if not used often, got me looking at the BMW M3 convertible. But they aren’t making them for 2007 (and if they were, they would be out of my price range). So that got me looking at recent model years.

I’m intrigued by the SMG transmission available in the M3 (manual transmission without a clutch pedal, and with steering wheel flaps to control shift points). This transmission became available in the 2002 model, and I can find used BMW M3s with SMG between 2002 and 2004 in my price range (and under 50,000 miles). This car delivers 333 HP, zero to 60 in about 5 1/2 seconds, and that’s the sort of performance I’m looking for.

I should also mention that I briefly toyed with the idea of getting a restored 60s-70s muscle car. My concern is that I prefer road cars more than the “fast in a straight-line” style cars (Georgia has few straight roads). Even the Corvette isn’t known for its cornering ability.

Porsche 911 owns this category, but I’m not sure I can get a decent one with the money I’m willing to spend.

So, what say you? For what I’m describing my “wants” are, are there better ways to spend my money? What other performance-oriented “drivers” cars, under $50K, would you recommend I consider?

2

Are you dead-set on buying new? If you really want to be unique, an older vehicle will set you apart from the herd. Everyone and his brother who wants to be flashy goes out and buys a brand new, shiny, 2007 car. Why not be different and go for a vintage one in excellent condition? With the budget you’ve mentioned, you can sure afford it.

Porsche, BMW, Mercedes - all of these brands’ new vehicles are humped, bulky, plasticky, cheap-looking eyesores compared to their models 30 years ago - not to mention the fact that every wannabe-slick lawyer or dentist goes the brand-new route. If I were in your shoes I’d be eyeing a late-70s or early-80s European sports car, in good to excellent condition.

3

I just bought my midlife crisis car. I agree with Argent Towers and did exactly what he said.

It’s going to depend on your personality so I’m not going to tell you what to buy, but why do you need to drive it to work? That’s such a waste, IMO. A true midlife crisis car should never see rain, or sit in traffic, and idealy be trailered everywhere. Otherwise, what’s the point? We’re talking about conspiscous consumption here, a hobby to take up lazy summer weekends. If you want a household appliace then stick with your Camry.

Then again, I’d rather take ths bus than sit in traffic watching my car waste away.

4

The Sky Redline has 260HP, so much more than a Miata, I suggest you guve it a shot unless you have a bias against turbo engines.

I am not sure if you were talking about muscle era cars or the current vette here, but the current vette can certainly hold its own insofar as cornering goes.

How about an Audi TT?

The Porsche Boxster comes in just under 50K, or 55K for the Boxster S, which is a pretty quick vehicle.

Also, the MiniCooper S is not realy considered a “sports” car but it is certainly a drivers car. Very light, very quick, handles very nicely.

5

The traditional male midlife crisis vehicle is a red Porsche convertible.

6

From BTVS:
Spike, on hearing that Giles has a new car: “Is is red? And shiny? And shaped like a penis?”
There’s a quote from Buffy for every occasion.

7

Come on now, it’s gotta be a red corvette.

8

Come on, a Saturn for your midlife crisis car? Saturn is the kind of car that makes people have midlife crises. The fact that they have a sporty model doesn’t change the dowdiness of the brand.

If you really want to take your life to a whole new level (which, believe me, you have enough money to do,) go all the way. Get something that is pure class, pure character, and pure badass. None of these shiny new cars do it. They’re all too clowny looking, and too common. You need something that’s going to make you an elite.

In any case, you should be taking this matter seriously, AZCowboy. Don’t think of it as a “midlife crisis,” think of it as an opportunity to express your own personal character through a unique vehicle that will turn heads, garner admiring stares, give you pleasure on the road every day you drive it, and make lawyers and CPAs who earn three times your income think to themselves “why can’t I have that kind of class?” as they drive by in their 2007 status symbols. That, my friend, is a life.

1978 Mercedes SL.

1980 Jaguar XJS.

1975 Mercedes 450 SEL. (Take a look at that interior!! You will not find that kind of class in a newer car.)

9

Yeah! The Mercedes’ from the mid-'60s to the late '70s rule! They were designed by Italians.

The butt-ugly newer Benzes and Chryslers post-Benz-takeover are proof that Germans should always outsource design to countries that know how!

10

I have found it.

11

Yeah, you really have to either go Porsche or Corvette (red or yellow, but black is acceptible if you also go for the 'Eighties Miami Vice wardrobe) if you want to be seriously considered as being in a midlife crisis. Otherwise, you’re just a poseur. And while I don’t generally agree with Argent Towers esthetic sense, he’s got a point that you can keep the car in your price range by buying used. (In that case I’d definitely go with the Porsche, which will be much easier and surprisingly cheaper to maintain than the Corvette.)

A Saturn as a MLC vehicle? Dude, that’s a starter car for conscientous college students and young, not-yet-pregnant couples, not something to help fire up the old glands into squeezing out the last remaining drops of teenage hormones out of your system before shrivelling up into obsolescence.

Stranger

12

Why don’t you agree with my aesthetic sense? How could anyone argue with the cars I’ve listed? They’re classy, they’re sleek (but with straight lines, instead of the ugly bulky curves of today’s vehicles,) they have amazing interiors - what’s not to like about them?

And why does AZCowboy have to be “traditional?” Why does he have to get the same vehicle that everyone else gets for their “midlife crisis?”

13

The Mercedes SL is okay, but I’ve driven the Jag, and it’s a complete pig. (Also, they’re about as reliable as a Russian nuclear submarine, and almost as hazardous to the passengers and environment.)

The 450 SEL looks like a car that an internist bought new thirty-three years ago and drives twice a week to his tennis club and sex date with a mistress who looks just like his wife but is twenty years younger. That’s a car for a guy too boring to ever have a mid-life crisis, or indeed, a life.

Dude, a mid-life crisis is a total cliché; to buy something really novel would totally ruin the joke. I mean, a guy driving a Volvo 1800 isn’t having a mid-life crisis, he’s just a car geek who appreciates style and automotive history, and perhaps fancies himself as looking not just a bit like Roger Moore.

Stranger

14

On the subject of Corvettes, if I were in your shoes I’d definitely go for an 80s one, like the one Leo Johnson has in Twin Peaks.

15

I can’t see how the SEL is boring if nobody has one anymore. All the rich old douchebags you’re talking about now have 2007 cars, at least in my neck of the woods. (This perspective is probably colored by my young age, so I could see how you’d have a different idea, Stranger.) But if you do think the SEL is a bore, I’d go even further back and try a 60s Mercedes. Those are absolutely unbeatable in the class department.

And a Volvo 1800? Damn! Count me in.

16

There’s an Audi on the market now that is a variation of the A4. It has a Hungarian-built V-8 that’s takes the car from 0-60 in about 4 seconds. Can’t remember the letter/number combo for it, but it’s something like an R4 or RS4 or S4. Easy to find, I’m sure.

17

The RS4 is truly a monster of a car, it also starts at $66k, IIRC. Besides, a small family sedan with chrome mirrors is hardly a MLC car.

18

I feel like there are a million new cars that look like that RS4. Everything about it seems fairly pedestrian to me, except the price tag. I would definitely go with something older, more obscure, and less slick-looking.

19

Well then, I’d have to go with a '65 GTO Tri-Power.

20

Mid life crisis? I got your midlife crisis car right here, or maybe right here.
The factory five roadster will go 0-60 in 3.6 seconds. The Caterham will (will depending on engine) will go 0-60 in 3 seconds.