For the highway: Toyota Prius.
For local stuff: Smart Fortwo.
And for the haulin’ jobs: a high-headroom Dodge/Mercedes/Freightliner Sprinter van. (I’ve seen them with all three logos in Toronto, so I don’t know who’s selling them now.)
With my old Maxima SE now finally paid off, I’m getting car fever myself. Though I’ll probably do the sensible thing and wait to September to get a better deal. Wanting to upgrade the luxury level slightly, being a fan of stodgy four-door sedans with slightly sportier handling and not willing to chance any non-Japanese models ( European reliability really seems to be taking a shit and American stuff still lags ), I’m pretty much down to :
Acura TL
Infiniti G35
Lexus IS250
Dark horse candidate if I go slightly cheaper might be the Subaru Legacy GT sedan.
All things being equal I’d go with the Infiniti M35, but I think that might be stretching just slightly more than I prudently should. The Lexus might be slightly too small for my tastes and the AWD versions of the Lexus and Infiniti ( which I’d prefer for windy wet hilly roads ) are a bit pricier. I’ll likely settle on the Acura, which is certainly the roomiest and the value leader if perhaps just lightly less luxurious and solid than the Lexus and a little less performance oriented than the G35.
I don’t know a lot about cars, but wouldn’t this interest you?
‘In a light car it is therefore essential to have light suspension — easier said than done in a vehicle which needs tyres and a braking system commensurate with a top speed of over 230mph.’
Drop the R32 and get a Lotus Exige, much better fun as a track car.
Get an Audi RS-4 as your regular driver (comfortable, practicle, and 420 horse power )
Yes, because of regenerative braking and electric-only operation. But if you’re commuting every day to the same office in it, you’d use even fewer resources on the bus. Where it would come in handy would be for the sort of job where you have to drive around a lot visiting clients.
I want a plug-in hybrid diesel Smart, but I don’t know whether that’s possible given the limited space in the car. (The Canadian Smarts are already diesel.)
My very good friend has the Elise (same car in targa roof configuration) and it’s fun as hell to drive.
It’s my next car (in 2007). It was a toss up between an M3 and that and I just like the Audi quattro platform a little better and the interior fit/ergonomics are more to my taste.
It’s not on my list because I’ve already accepted it as a given.