Thanks guys! I'm really happy with it so far. It's a great daily.
So, I started looking for a daily to buy here sometime around August 2019. I'd been renting a Daihatsu Mira kei car through my company since I started, and after doing the math on how much it cost me every month, it made sense to just buy a car myself. First: sooner-the-better to start saving money, and second: buying and registering a car requires I visit a few government agencies that only operate on times I'm at work. August is my longest break from work, since it's summer vacation for the kids at school, so it just made sense to start then.
Anyways, I just played around and August came and went, and now it's September. A few cars caught my eye looking through used listings on Goonet and Yahoo Auctions, all in-budget and fun:
Toyota MR-S.
I've always liked the MR-S and I kind of wanted to experience how a mid-engine car felt driving near the limit. I've only ever autocrossed/tracked FR layout cars before, so I was curious. I like the styling and it's lightweight and has cool engine swaps available. The guy at the shop where I took this photo was telling me the 2ZZ engine swap was shaken-compatible and made the car way more fun.
Subaru Impreza WRX. Specifically the GC chassis cars. They sold STi versions here too, but those were a little too much money. Looked like fun, AWD is nice up here in Tochigi, good storage space. But probably not great on gas, and it's a 300 series plate if I remember correctly, so owning costs shoot up.
Some kei van/truck. I was mostly looking at 4WD Subaru Sambar Vans and Mazda Porter Cabs. Kei car ownership is super cheap, they're great on gas, they don't require proof of parking space availability, etc. Plus the van is super practical for long road trips, and being able to sleep in the back is a bonus. But they aren't nearly as fun as a sports car when all these cool Japanese circuits are a hop, skip, and a jump away.
Now, we come to the inevitable Roadster haha. It's a 500 series plate, easy to work on, more storage than the MR-S, and so on. I was browsing for Roadsters one day and, for some reason, I ended up on GHO's website. And then their used car page.
M2-1028 $8000
...
So I immediately drive down to Saitama to see if I can give my new favorite shop a lot of my money. Heart's racing, I pull up and ask,
"Hey, I saw you have a 1028 listed on the website and I was wondering if maybe it was just an old lis-"
"Oh that, just an old listing. That car's long gone."
Ahh damn. I suspected as much, since $8k for an M2 car is robbery, but still...
So I walked around the shop, chatting with the dude, asking about the legendary blue GHO car just sitting around unremarkably in the center of the shop.
Still worth the trip. It's apparently been sitting still for a number of years with no engine.
Lots of customer cars, many of them M2. He mostly focuses on customer car maintenance nowadays.
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