OV9

My eldest is now taking lessons and talk has turned to a car for him.

He is keen on doing things a bit differently (rather than just getting a default Fiesta) if he can as he pretty much hates all modern designs and dismisses them as hideous. Also isn't keen on an 'old ladies shopping car' to use his terminology.

For the first time last week he said he thought and all his mates thought my Subaru was cool. So i thought maybe something from the 80s/90's.

Started showing him older cars.

EG Civic 1.6 - Liked that a lot
EF Civic 1.6 - Again liked that
Nissan Sunny ZX 1.8 - Also liked that (although a 1.8i Twincam isn't likely to happen)
Sunny 1.6SR (same shape as GTiR) - Not as keen
Classic Impreza Sport 2.0 - Also like that
Impreza Hatch 1.5 - kind of liked that

I think all but the Impreza 1.5 are over 20 years old and and would hopefully be classed as classics so we are going to invesigate to see if any will be a viable option for a first car.
The EG Civic and the Classic impreza were the favourites with the Civic as the most likely option as it was available with a little 1.3 lump so should hopefullybe insurable, even though the 2.0 Impreza isn't quick at all I am sure that the prices will be mental even with classic status.

Should make for a more interesting car hunt.

Put details into confused dot com and then play with vehicle options to see the cost impact as it’s not always obvious.

Avoid black-box if you can.

Note that full comp is now almost the same price as tpf&t.

Anything fun that old men drive.

Dave!

My only advice is check parts availability - even the Puma, which isn't 'that' old, had plenty of parts which you just can't get any more. Body panels in particular, but really, anything that wasn't on the Fiesta already was a PITA to source. £300+ for a wing in primer, for example.

As it's for a learner, bumps and scrapes are more likely, after all...

If any of those are insurance on a new licence I’ll be amazed.

What about something like a Suzuki Ignis?

Rover 25s are very insurable as first cars for some reason!

You'll be lucky to find a decent old civic for first car money. Cheap ones are very much project cars these days.

EG Civic, great shape, still looks good to my eyes.

Buy something weird with very little insurance history. The eldest of my sisters next door neighbour bought an imported American V8 thing, 18, just passed his test and it was under £1k to insure, or so his Dad said.

I've not seen it in a while, though. Maybe V8 RWD isn't too wise for a first car

ZedLeg wrote: ↑Mon Jan 20, 2020 4:06 pm You'll be lucky to find a decent old civic for first car money. Cheap ones are very much project cars these days.

That might not be a bad thing, depending on how spanner-curious he is and how much he 'needs' to drive.

My mates first car was a shagged Suzuki Jimny. Absolute piece of piss to work on, means he's not afraid of doing his own oil changes and brake jobs (which were black magic to him beforehand).

Volvo 480 ?

Most old cars will be expensive to insure because of the safeties.

Weirdly it would have cost the same to insure our 17 year old ( at the time ) on my mrs' mk2 golf GTi as it did her 1.4 Lupo.

Spent some time going through the list with onlne quotes

A 1.3 Civic is more expensive to insure than the 1.5 Impreza (probably down to the parts cost and availability), which was the best of that bunch by a couple of hundred. unsurprisingly the 2.0 impreza was mental costs.
A 1.0 Yaris is the cheapest I can find so far at just under 1k, but that's a BB policy, which will be useless for him as sometimes he finishes work later and having a car will mean he can get home without us being taxis (he takes the bus a lot but they stop running on our route before he finishes some nights).
The Yaris/Impreza difference is some £500 a year and I'm not sure for the sake of being different he will want to pay out the difference.

Plenty of time yet as it's still pre-test stage in the learning curve so if we can find something different and cool (well as cool as a first car can be) it would be good. My mates boy has a MK2 Golf Driver and he's had that since passing a few years ago. They spanner it together and it doesn't cost the earth to insure (now they have taken off the coliovers it came on), but I think i'd end up doing everything that's why I was steering him towards japanese .

Can you still get classic insurance at 17/18?

My 924 was about 130 quid a year when I was 26 through Lancaster insurance.

I see a few old Civics crashed in ditches and they seem to be a young persons car for modding so not surprised it costs more.
Don’t know how much parts prices would affect cars which are priced pretty cheap as the slightest knock will write them off.

Back in my day anything above 1.4 cost a fortune but nowadays 1.4 is pretty big so maybe you need to look at smaller capacity engines. As said if you want the best price you need to find something with very little bad insurance history and a low group but that leaves you with a newly launched car model or something like a Daihatsu.

drcarlos wrote: ↑Mon Jan 20, 2020 2:59 pm My eldest is now taking lessons and talk has turned to a car for him.

He is keen on doing things a bit differently (rather than just getting a default Fiesta) if he can as he pretty much hates all modern designs and dismisses them as hideous. Also isn't keen on an 'old ladies shopping car' to use his terminology.

Is he paying for it Carl?

If he's spending his hard-earned then I'd happily help him find his ideal motor. Otherwise..

My eldest has been driving a 1.2 polo for almost a year now. It was in great order but it's looking pretty battered now tbh. Been a cheap motor and he loves it.

Sportka? Nippy go kart handling, fiesta parts bin so cheap bits, really easy to work on. Body wise only the bumpers are special items, all the body panels are standard ka items

jamcg wrote: ↑Mon Jan 20, 2020 6:50 pm Sportka? Nippy go kart handling, fiesta parts bin so cheap bits, really easy to work on. Body wise only the bumpers are special items, all the body panels will have rusted to shit

FTFY

JonMad wrote: ↑Mon Jan 20, 2020 7:22 pm

jamcg wrote: ↑Mon Jan 20, 2020 6:50 pm Sportka? Nippy go kart handling, fiesta parts bin so cheap bits, really easy to work on. Body wise only the bumpers are special items, all the body panels will have rusted to shit

FTFY

Unfortunately this.

Some data from admiral

https://www.admiral.com/magazine/guides ... -to-insure

Interesting to see the vw beetle on the list. Could be a decent option that’s a bit out of the ordinary. Get one with a set of steelies.

Have you looked at Saabs and Volvos? Not a huge surprise me bringing them up but they used to be pretty cheap and even an older one (late 90s early 00s) would still be pretty solid and safe.

Volvos used to be pretty cheap to insure as they were not ragged by yoofs innit.