Things I’ve learnt: When buying a car…
When buying a car there are 3 basic parameters to consider:
- Affordability
- Reliability
- Coolness
You can pick any two.
Of course affordability is relative and cool is subjective, but in my experience it simply isn’t possible to have all three.
UPDATE 05/05/08: I brought a new (used) car…a Skoda Fabia vRS, and I’m very happy with it.
It’s the best combination of affordability, reliability and coolness I could find. Skoda has a rather chequered history as a marque, but there’s no denying they are making really solid cars these days (2 of the top 5 in the Top Gear 2006 survey).
It’s a 1.9ltr Turbo Diesel so it gets great mileage, which at 4-5ltr/100km is down to hybrid territory. But of course that assumes very moderate driving, which is not necessarily a safe assumption…the turbo charged 1.9ltr engine delivers about 130bhp which is a hell of a lot for such a small car (based on the VW Polo platform), so it is fun to drive, and difficult to drive moderately :)
