Around here we just lease Fiats. I know three people that have done this deal.
You can also get a smart car for as little as $100/mo if you don't drive too much. If you're only looking for a small commuter they're both good options. That said, both the smart and fiat are fugly. You have to have a high tolerance for looking like a dork (not in a good way) to drive either.
The Smart FourTwo really suffered in its translation to the North American market. They dropped in Canada about 2 years earlier and got like 70MPG. Then they come to the US and that number gets cut in half. I'm suspicious of any car that gains in performance when you add a motorcycle engine. Edited to add: I'm now rocking an Android phone because the same day T-Mobile tried to sell me a fully loaded iPhone 6 plus for $59 a month, Nissan tried to lease me a versa for $79 a month. Something in my skull cracked. Phones should be an order of magnitude cheaper than cars. Always.
I've been driving a '95 Dodge Stealth since 2002 because there's nothing out there that gets even vaguely close to what I want for what I'm willing to spend. Plus, my dad really fucked me over. He bought a Mooney M20F for $60k. So now I price everything in relation to what fraction of a fucking light aircraft it is. Scion FR-S? Half a Mooney Unit. 370Z? .8 Mooney Units. Prius C? 1/3 a Mooney Unit. Corvette C7? 1.2 Mooney Units. I think the blue book value on my car right now is like 2 grand. Which is less than a third what I paid for the motorcycle. And there's nothing out there right now with a back seat, some style and some get up and go for less than 2/3rds the cost of a light aircraft. I mean, I'm 40 years old. Am I really going to try and pull this off? Which means one of these: And that right there is the very definition of "trying too hard." For 2/3rds to a full Mooney Unit. So here we are.
I'd love to get a pilots license and own a plane one day. Well. I'd probably hate it and hate flying it because I don't trust myself to not kill anyone. Outside of that, however, planes are amazing. Also, government auctions can get you a little Cessna for ~30K AFAIK. As for cars, I can't see how anyone justifies spending over 5K for a car, when you can get a perfectly working, not too used, decently modern, car for that price. New cars lose most of their value in what? Two years?
The evoque is an interesting car. If the general public ever saw drawings car designers made, they would t recognize most of them as cars. They're kinda out of proportion to what we're used to, giant wheels, small "greenhouse". The evoque is as close to a designers' car as exists on the road for mass production.
We saw 'em drop at the LA Auto Show a couple years ago. We were like "hey, that's kinda neat. How much is it?" And they're like "Probably between fifty and seventy thousand dollars" and we were like "we outty." Then they started road testing them and as it turns out, they kinda suck. Having lived in LA I've taken a blood oath with myself to never again own a german car... but in that market segment, there are like 3 BMWs, 2 Porsches and a Mercedes that give you much better value. And that's never a good sign.
I officially take back everything nice I've ever said about Range Rover or Evoque. It's a goddam piece of shit, and I shouldn't be surprised considering that Land Rover tops almost every list of worst quality manufacturer. 2013 Evoque got fully paid off last month. Yesterday the turbo blew. $4300 for a new one. Fuck you, Range Rover. I sent them a series of nasty tweets, because I don't know how else to take out my frustration. No other "luxury" car builder makes cars that break after 65k miles.
Apparently you have never heard of BMW. Coworkers m3 failed like clock work at 65k he was 6k in parts but they gave him a discount on labor because it was so close to the warranty end. Luxury means more shit to break. luxury and quality are not interchangeable
Yes Acura and Lexus have higher quality but not because they are looking luxury vehicles. Those 2 are independent factors. Besides British cars have always been poor quality. Germans used to be known for high quality but the 90s pan European supply chain has had very negative effects on that. Plus the us and Mexican BMW quality is worse than German or South African
Yikes. Condolences! I had halfway screwed up my face to thinking about liking them but that whole "twice as big as an RX-3 with the same sized engine" thing kinda didn't help. Truth? I hate turbos. I'm willing to sacrifice some efficiency in favor of fucking throttle response, thanks.
I got a twitter message from Land Rover a short time later asking for my contact details, and a follow up message that a customer service rep would be in contact with me soon. We'll see how they handle it. Not sure what they can offer, but I suppose some kind of credit would be nice. It'd be nice to know a guy could get rewarded for not-very-carefully-considered internet vitriol. I'm not quite sure how I feel about turbos. I had one on my 1993 Eagle Talon, and I thought that car was sweet, but I was 17, and anything that rolled was sweet to me at that time. I hadn't driven another one until the Evoque, and I agree with your point about throttle response. Works well enough on the freeway, but from a stop it's pretty damn slow to kick in. Technically my 2016 1.5L Malibu has one, but I can't say it kicks in too often. I drive that car pretty soft, because, well, it's a Malibu.
Full disclosure: after my recent marriage, I'm now the proud owner of an Evoque. I've driven it enough to know what I like and dislike about it. Overall, it's a really nice ride, but I wouldn't throw down $50k on one. The reason they're so popular is because there isn't anything quite like them on the road. It's not really a crossover. It's not really an SUV. It's somewhere in between, a sweet spot that no one has exploited yet. Give it another 3-5 years and every company will have a direct competitor.
Full disclosure: I built this from spare parts at the tender age of 18: Yep. That's a Triumph TR-7 on 31" mud tires. it has a blueprinted Chevy 400 on a cut-down Scout 800 chassis. Realistically speaking, I did my best to build a Range Rover Evoque in 1992. It even had matte paint. Trendsetter, I. If the Evoque came in at $30k it'd be a done deal. That's kind of what a Juke is but it's a little too tweeny. The designer, Shiro Nakamura was also responsible for this: ...and I was inches from buying one of those, homely as it is.
It's funny, the Japanese aesthetic is my favorite for all things home. Their cars, on the other hand, have never resonated with me. I think they all look silly and cheap, almost like they don't take themselves seriously. The Bolt was actually designed at GM's facility in Korea, which goes a long way to explain its looks. They're trying to capture that part of the population that would buy a Korean or Japanese economy car. Not a wise move, IMO, because there's a reason many of us who would love a fuel efficient car won't buy one--because most of them make me queasy. This on the other hand: This is would buy... Except that it's like $70k, so, yeah...
