Ask Jack: The $10,000 Pyramid

Adjusted for inflation, it's not much

Long-time reader KoR asks:

Hey Jack, would [you] happen to be doing an advice column or anything? I have $10k and an empty parking spot burning a hole in my mind where I'd like something infinitely more interesting than my daily driver Volvo to reside. Live near some foothills, nothing crazy but enough for some fun. Thinking of everything between a driver-spec MGB, a C4 Corvette, and a new edge Mustang.

Bonus points for being old enough to register historic because of how draconian my state's inspection laws are.

First off, a bit of Housekeeping: It sounds like most of you are willing to receive fairly frequent emails from me. If that changes, let me know and we’ll drop the frequency down. Too much of anything, &c.

The easy answer to this question is A Motorcycle!!!! but that’s not the answer for everyone — not to mention the fact that “canyon carving” on a motorcycle can be legitimately deadly.

Now, allow me to be a total jerk and shoot down all three of these ideas before telling you what the RIGHT thing to do is. I’m always right, of course, except for the many, many times I’m wrong.

Driver-spec MGB: On paper, the idea of being able to drive the thing at 8/10ths without getting a ticket is pretty neat. But in the real world, the lack of brakes and acceleration can put you in some unpleasant situations. In the event that some jerk in an Escalade or F-550 wants to ride your bumper, you at least want the option of dropping them out of your mirrors.

C4 Corvette: Brilliant track cars, wonderful autocross champion contenders, and in the early two-tone metallic paint schemes there’s nothing cooler — but they don’t ride well, they’re a little cramped in strange ways, and usable ones are now well north of ten grand even if they don’t have Admiral Blue paint.

New Edge Mustang: Absolutely horrible to drive on back roads until you open up the extensive book of aftermarket options and turn them into brilliant, characterful contenders. (For an example of just that, here’s a test of a reader-owned New Edge from Toronto Motorsports Park.) But if you do that you’re going to run out of money. The rising tide of used-car prices has dragged the V-8 New Edges up with it, to my immense annoyance.

Having thoughtlessly disrespected all of the provided choices, I’d better come up with some alternatives.

NC (third-generation) Miata: This one won’t be inspection-exempt, but it should be relatively painless to get it through the rat maze in most states. A CarGurus search turns up a hundred or so of them at eight grand or thereabouts. (A lot of them, to be fair, are automatics — but not all.) That leaves you two thousand bucks to put brakes and tires on it.

A well-driven NC is non-trivially faster than a classic Miata, particularly on back roads. It will be durable and reliable. Parts are easy to get. If you can contrive to get onto the Mazdaspeed parts program through a few SCCA autocross entries, you can buy neat stuff cheap, like this RAYS Engineering Volk TE40 wheel that my wife just got done jamming into the door of a fellow SCCA racer who didn’t want to yield the turn:

Almost everybody fits in an NC, which can’t be said about the three generations surrounding it. If it’s not fast enough, you can swap in an LS, or you can supercharge it, or you can put in a tuned 2.5L Duratec for a reliable 220 horsepower. Kind of like a Honda S2000 minus the rear differential issues.

So that’s my recommendation, KoR — but I’ll do a pair of Honorable Mentions as well, and I’m sure the readers will chime in as well.

Honorable Mention: Toyota Corolla FX16 / Nova Twin Cam

One of the all-time greats. A “box” Civic Si without any of the Honda markup. With decent tires and new shocks on it, it’s respectably fast. It’s 35 years old, which helps with inspection. Downsides: rust, parts availability, nothing but a tinfoil box if you’re in a crash.

Honorable Mention: Chevrolet S-10 (First Gen)

Go ahead and laugh — but an early S-10 can be turned into a respectable backroads contender with enough effort. You can put a lot of serious wheel/tire combinations on with no effort at all. The 4.3 is strong enough to keep up with modern traffic, and some of them had a stick shift. With enough ingenuity you could even do a Vortec swap at under ten grand. At that point, you’re on your way to being noted LS7/S-10 pilot and multiple-series champion Steven Eich!

Oh, and in a pinch you can move some furniture with it.

Those are my recommendations. Readers, I yield the floor to you!