Spending all your free cash on a car is not wise. I love cars as much as the next guy but they're a really really bad investment. And the fact is you can have just as much fun with a cheaper car. When I was 20 I was driving a cheap beater but having a blast. Sure I WANTED an FD or some other hot sports car but I knew I'd be sacrificing a lot of my future well being just for a car. I waited until a used FD and the maintenance was very affordable for me before I bought one and I've been loving (almost) every minute of owning it. Sure I could now buy a more expensive sports car than the FD and stretch my budget a bit. But why? Especially when the FD spanks many more expensive sports cars anyway.

But seriously... if you're sinking everything you've got into a car... it might make you happy now but you'll probably regret it someday. Plus... working hard sucks!

 

Working hard is fun, what're you talkin' about?

And owning/maintaining the FD is like...more motivation.

In the end it comes down to this:

Is it worth it?

Ask yourself that.

IS being broke at the end of every month, spending $40 per gas tank, getting ~200 miles per tank, and owning a cop-magnet REALLY worth it?

For me...F*CK yeah it is...it's an FD godd*mn it. It's my dream car.

 

no
no
hell yes!! but only temporary though
thats good, im glad you didnt have to learn the hard way.

 

Maybe you missed the irony in your post that I pointed out in mine you half wit. You're giving advice and scolding someone else for not being more responsible then stating you are responsible when you make retarded decisions like racing an STI after you've lost lots of coolant and broke your AST. It's degenerates like you that have brought this forum to a new low.

 

Well....first of all, the rotary community is VERY diverse and does not lend itself well to 'pigeonholing' owners into groups, i.e. "rich kids", etc. Let's face it....rich kids these days are buying (or being given) a BMW M3 or an Infinity G35 or a Lexus IS350 or something along those lines....heaven forbid they be seen in a 10+ year old car!

There is nothing wrong with dreaming to own ANY car, and if that happens to be an FD, then I can only hope that you have the maturity TO own one. Because these cars are NOT for everyone, CERTAINLY not for everyone simply because they feel "they deserve one". One really needs to have the time, patience, money and automotive experience to "afford" these cars, due to their age and availability of parts and service.
And what you think is "cool" at 16 or 18 or 20 you will look back on in 5 or 10 years and go, "Jesus....I was such loser!" but unfortunately you may have done things to your car that reflected that particular state of mind. We throw the term "ricer" around a lot, but it truly is an expression of disgust aimed at someone who just OUGHT to know that he and/or his car is downright foolish looking, but they just don't get it. And for a lot of us, nothing makes us cringe more than seeing an FD "riced out" by some punk that doesn't know jack **** but THINKS he does, the type of punk that revs on and races EVERYTHING he sees, and then will go tell such an exaggerated story that it defies logic (".......yeah, so there was this bad-*** quad-turbo/supercharged C6 puttin' out 1200 hp and I walked him like a dog.....") and everyone cringes again. And you can see it happening more and more as these cars continue to come down in price. Hell....I've seen trashed and thrashed ones locally for under $10K. But you have to SEE these cars to understand the....heinosity....of what has happened to them. Dashes ripped up/ taken apart, seats torn up or taken out and replaced with some Chinese knock-off of a SPARCO, 6" diameter tachs WITH SHIFT LIGHT just hideously mounted with some plumber's tape, half the already cheap interior plastic pieces broken or missing, power windows that don't work, carpets taken out, sunroof panels replaced with cheap-*** PLEXIGLASS "in order to save the weight, yo....it knocked 2 seconds off my 1/4....now I'm turnin' 10's....". Cars with not a single straight body panel on them. No inner fenders. And the obligatory 2 foot tall wing hanging (primered only of course) off the tail of the car. Yes sadly there are a lot of these around and more and more everyday (offset only by the ones that are beign TOTALLED by these same idiots!) and fewer and fewer 'nice' FDs left.
This is the reason that when some high school kid comes up and says, "Hey man...wanna sell your car?" I say, "Sure.....give me $30,000 and it is yours.".

SO all this rambling just emphasizes that other group of FD owners, those that love and enjoy and take care of their cars. These guys are anywhere from 16 to 60, so they transcend or encompass all age groups. These guys make anywhere from $12K to $200K annually. Some have kids, some don't. Some keep the cars dead stock, some have invested 5 or 6 times the car's worth into improvements/modifications. But one thing these cars all have in common is....they LOOK good and are well kept and well maintained.

So it is up to you to decide which group you want to be in. If you choose the former, quite simply you won't have the car long. You will either wreck it or break it. So your time in the rotary community is limited, with the only sad thing being that you will take yet another FD off the road. But that has benefits for the rest of us....the OTHER group. We get your parts and we get just one more notch into the exclusivity club of having a rarer and rarer car.

YOU make the choice.