[JnC]

I was about to buy an old Porsche as a classic car, but once I realized the repair and upkeep of a "project car", I decided to just get a more interesting daily driver instead.

 

[JnC]

I think you made a wise choice. An old project car has two issues:

Problems that you know about that you are fixing or intend to fix.

Problems that you dont know about that are about to occur. These are things from the accumulation of wear and tear over the history of the car.

And I always have an uneasy feeling about taking an old car on a trip or on a jaunt in the mountains.

Sometimes its better to start off with a clean sheet. But I'll still keep an eye out for nice restorations.

 

[JnC]

Yeah, the difficulty I had with Porsches was trying to convince the seller than despite the claimed $35k that they had put into the car, it was still only worth $17k on the market. And as you mentioned, the expense of the maintenance and unexpected upkeep talked me out of it.

 

[JnC]

I plan to buy new or slightly used next year and the top contenders are the Hyundai Veloster, a Mazdaspeed2 (if available), a Fit Si (if available), or a CR-Z.

The Veloster should be revealed this week. However, it seems to be a much different design than the original 2dr. coupe concept car. The images I've seen have been of a 4 door and the lines just don't look as good as the concept. And keep in mind that the 40mpg figure that's been bandied about is hwy. The combined mpg score is what you'll need to pay attention to.