Hmmmmm. I could go for a little summer romance with a gas-sipping foreigner. Just don't let either of my 4x4's find out about it.

A fine automobile/truck/mino designed by the late, great, Alex Tremulis. I'd never consider paying for one, just merely beat the owner with a sack of frozen oranges then proceed to procure his...

Subaru, inexpensive and built to stay that way...until you have to replace the heads or fix rust.

My small coupe is 23 years old....but it's an RX-7, so I guess I'm doing it wrong.

Actually, a motorcycle - not a car - is like a horse. Technically, a motorcycle is a mechanical horse.

@diskreet: A horse you don't have to shoot simply because to bent the fork. Motorcycle ftw.

time for me to find a "honey bee"

Funny, I just picked up a used subaru, but mines an 97 outback wagon. 5spd, bought for $900. Lets see what mileage I can get outta her.

@Adamskiy:Yes you are, but aren't you having fun? BTW you can push that 7 into the 20s by just keeping the revs under 4K. Did it with my old 89!

A '99 Escort with 130K (hand me down from my Mom) is my daily driver. 38-42 MPG in relative comfort. I'm keeping an eye open for a little old station wagon of some sort (Sentra or Corolla or Mazda 323 maybe) for the wife.

The only problem is that my wife isn't driven my cost savings. She HATES the idea of me driving a beater. Somehow, she holds the belief that we are entitled to better vehicles. In her mind, they are a status symbol. Also, in general, she has terrible taste in cars. She likes the Lexus SC300 and the Solara Convertible more than anything else. She thinks wagons are worse than mini-vans. Otherwise, I'd have a fleet of vintage Japanese beaters already! Sadly, I can't placate her by buying her the car of her desire either! To be honest, I'd gladly compromise with a manual Mazda sedan, but she has banned all manual drive cars. I'm doomed.

I had this same year in a wagon as my first car ever. They were horribly rust-prone unfortunately. I loved it all the same.
I now drive a 91 crx dx, it's not the insanely efficient hf but it still gets low 40's mpg on the highway. It's great unless you need to haul a sofa around.

The way I've always thought of cars is like, uh, whores, basically. Get you from point a to point b.

I love phonetic day at Jalopnik!

daily driver 2000 Suzuki Swift cost about 35 bucks to fill every two weeks and that was when regular was $3.54/ gallon

my weekend car is a 2001 Nissan Maxima
it gets decent mileage but cost substantially more to fill up from empty

@Sloop_John_B: My girlfriend thinks the same thing about wagons. She also insists that they're 'mom cars,' even though middle class moms in this country stopped buying wagons before she was born.

Of course, she drives an Intrepid and LOVES it. pffft. She also crapped on my dreams of even test-driving a smart ForTwo, and/or getting a beater Mercedes.

She's awful uppity for someone who is taking her sweet time getting an associate's degree.

I hate my life.

25-30 isn't all that great. Could have done much better and had an easier time keeping it running. What about those crazy Hondas? Like harumph's CRX? Plenty of those around for parts.

My '06 xB with Automatic will get up to 30mpg, but that's if I drive like an old lady, no AC and with decent traffic. I've only gotten 30+ a few tankfuls. 28mpg is more typical. But still, that's a "new" car.

@Sloop_John_B: To quote the knight in "Indiana Jones and The Holy Grail":

"You have chosen... poorly."

@Paul Y. is Going Dumb at the Sideshow: Testicles, Paul. Paul, testicles.

@Paul Y. is Going Dumb at the Sideshow and Sloop_John_B: Next thing you know they'll take issue with your choice in socks. Bad taste in cars is not a good character trait in a mate for someone who frequents this site.

The tough part about a commuter-beater is they tend to get a lot of miles on them. I'm not crazy about putting 15k miles/year on a car with 150k already on the clock.

@harumph: Why? Strapped a love-seat to the roof of my friend's CRX HF once. it was painfully show but it got the thing to his house 2 miles away.

@TheTooth: BRAVO!!

@beercheck: @Paul Y. is Going Dumb at the Sideshow: Testicles, Paul. Paul, testicles.

you forgot to include Sloop_John_B.

I guess I am mega fortunate to have my girlie love my 65 Impala, be willling to drive a 63 Nova Wagon if I get her one, and digs/is considering buying Audi avants!! OH and doesn't look like your average SciFi convention female attendee!!!! OH BOY! I'm king of this here castle!! WIPOOOO

@Sloop_John_B: Grounds for divorce. Make sure you get a male judge.

@Starlton Heston, Gushing post-mother: You marry that girl before one of us jealous fools tries to steal her from you. May the gods of auto motion gift you with many male children with great driving skills.

@Starlton Heston, Gushing post-mother: Yeah, but can she weld?

(I win)

My little civic gets in the ballpark of 28-32 in the city, about 35 on the highway, with AC.

And my girl grew up with a hotrodder as a father, and thinks having twice as many engines as cars in the garage is normal. Also violently opposed to automatic transmissions. Yeah, she's a keeper.

@Paul Y. is Going Dumb at the Sideshow:

Find you one that's half your age and makes twice as much.

There's no doubt, my car situation is fairly dire, but there's hope. She's always said that when I have some disposable income she will not oppose any vehicle I choose. My time will come. For now, I can only lust after '79 Impala wagons and late '70s civics.

@smoke~: No, because I'm 26.

Classic Jalopnik Threadjack in progress.

The rules laid out for me are simple... as long as she can get her car in/out of the garage and there's nothing parked on the grass, it's fair game.

She sometimes laments the loss of the patio area in the back yard, but there was no grass on it. ;)

Sadly, that was the last of my available parking, so a new house is in our future. I need room for a '60s Lincoln Continental and a Se7en still. :)

@Paul Y. is Going Dumb at the Sideshow: Wow. I'm not even sure what could qualify for that. An upper-level hooker catering to government pedophiles in the state of New York?

Leave it to Los Jalops to come up with all new criteria by which to objectify the female of the species: Loves wagons, old or new, thinks SUVs should go off road, and MAD_SCIENCE takes the cake with a mate who can weld...! Jezebel would be proud...

@Paul Y. is Going Dumb at the Sideshow: try hannah montana

@Adamskiy:

You and me both. I just bought a 20 year old beater to use as a daily driver, but I fear its small-block V8 will not even return Brat-level mileage. On the bright side, in a couple of years when it won't pass smog anymore I can race it at LeMons.

@Froggmann:

Keeping the revs below 4K in a 7? Blasphemer! My old '88 was prone to electrical gremlins, so I tried to test the redline buzzer at least thrice daily, just to make sure that it was in good working order.

These guys stole my idea before I managed to do it myself. My truck gets about 12mpg (and the Jag, 14mpg), so I've been looking for a $1000-$1500 beater, and the BRAT was on my list of possibilites.

Top of the list is an E30 (325e, not the guzzling 325i), followed by (in no particular order) a Fiero, an AW11 MR2, and a CRX.

Fun, cheap and fuel miserly doesn't have to mean boring.

Luckily, our next house has a detached barn/garage. It will suiffice as a bastion for all things manly. No longer will she cry about clutter, grease, tools..etc. I shall be liberated. The second floor is going to be refurbished into my adulthood version of a fort. Below, I envision my fleet of Japanese/European iron and all of my tools. I will christen it the "anti-wife" for good measure. I refuse to go quietly into the night.

@Sloop_John_B: "She likes the Lexus SC300"

You mean the 350, right?

I can buy anything I want that has four wheels as long as my wife has a spot in the garage.

@Sloop_John_B: A detached barn with a second floor would rock!

You, sir, would be a lucky man if not for the other vehicular restrictions placed upon you (no manual transmissions? Really?)

@Mad_Science:Yeah, but can she weld?

(I win)

touche....
but I can't either....

@charles_barrett: Sorry Charles. I guess it's good to see that some people can wield the "Axe of Parity" in a world filled with post-free-love parent's princess syndrome.

*@Paul Y. is Going Dumb at the Sideshow and Sloop_John_B: Next thing you know they'll take issue with your choice in socks. Bad taste in cars is not a good character trait in a mate for someone who frequents this site.*

Again, this is why I love my g/f. She drove a '94 Honda Civic into the ground with 250,000 miles, then gifted it to me when she bought her Matrix. She hates automatics. We drove cross country in a stick-shift '64 Corvair convertible, and she loves that car. I bought a '60 Dodge Dart Wagon which she also loves. Pretty much anytime I see a car I like, she says "Just buy it". I have around 14 cars/trucks and several engines/transmissions laying around and she thinks that's perfectly acceptable. She lusts after big, old American convertibles- the only car in which an auto trans is acceptable, in her opinion.

@Sloop_John_B:No manny tranny even in your personal hoopy? Is her name actually Cruella or was that just assigned by her sorority?

Evidently all the manufacturers have bought into the BS of the last ten years that Americans don't want mileage, they want power power Power! F that. A new truck with the same power rating as what I'm driving could get 40mpg easy, but I can't have that - they just won't configure it that way. Can't have the long bed either. What the hell? Does no one ever order just a plain, practical truck anymore?

Seriously, I think the best alternative is to get your gas-sipping Rising Sunmobile 20 years ago and keep driving it.

What, that's just me? And Adamskiy? Whatevs.

34.42 mpg at the last fill-up. No mechanical mods, original owner. Woohoo!

Beater ftw. I just picked up a 93 Miata for my daily commuter. 27mpg beats the pants off the 14 or so I was getting in the 85 4Runner, which now is purely for fun.

Lots of miles on the clock, but for $1500 you can't get a more fun car.

@Mad_Science: Mine can't weld, but she can sew, and that works out perfectly well because we don't ever fight over who gets to use the welder and who gets to use the sewing machine. Also, she may at some point decide to do interiors for me. ;)

@Elhigh: A plain, practical truck? What is that? Oh, you must mean something with 4 doors, miles of leather, and 6 TV screens for the kids.

I bought a 95 Geo for a winter car because my 4WD truck was killing on the 40 mile commute. I thought it would do better than 25 but that seems to be about as good as it gets.

My wife has given up. She was mad the first time or two I came home with some crazy POS but she's just numb now. She had some crazy idea that we had to AGREE on purchases. I'm pretty sure she's over it now.

I've tried to teach her how to drive a stick but it went poorly. She loves Cutlass's so that's a positive. I put my 455 in her 85 Cutlass but she sees it as "unreliable" so she'll only drive it around town. I've tried to explain that a $3000 rebuild on an Olds 455 is actually pretty freakin' bulletproof but she's having none of it.

She came from the world where all cars have to have oil changes every 3000 miles or every 3 months, even if they only have 5 miles on them. The whole family is extremely rigid.

Hey try reading your owner's manual, it tells you when to change your oil - "They just want to sell you another car so that's not accurate". Ok fine.

Of course we got a late start. She turned 40 6 days after we got married and that was 1999 so they're hard to train at that age.

@TheTooth: I'm sure you meant heated leather. oh, and you forgot the nav system and satellite radio. I miss our old farm trucks now... thanks, guys.

I never got rid of my 97 Prelude SH and although it's got some miles on