Car appreciation... the aesthetics, the engineering, etc

It's 5 hours reliably from Glasgow. 4h15 min if you are quick, 6h if you are stuck behind hoards of camper van

As a petrol head, looking for a single car with a priority for dog space in the rear, reliability, and low running costs is genuinely painful.

Honda Civic Type R :p

212 g/km I believe. 2 litre but you could choose between a 2006/7 and get taxed on engine size or a 2008-11 and get taxed on emissions. Boot is cavernous with the magic seats down.

But you need to factor in the cost of all the stickers, the neon under tray and the 120 litre NOS bottle.

Yeah, it's a hatch too, love them but not right now.

Thing is, we're moving to west coast of Ireland where cost of living is low, and space is plentiful, so I'll likely buy something fun for myself when we're home and settled next year.

I've narrowed my choice to 2 or 3 cars:
06 impreza wrx wagon - slightly older, not cheap to run, but plenty reliable if you don't chase power
05 forester xt - same as the above pretty much, but worse on fuel and with more space
13 skoda yeti 2.0tdi 4x4 - cheaper to run, cheaper to tax, nearly 10 years newer, but (and its a big one) it's a diesel

The impreza is my wife's least favourite annoyingly

Did they do the Renault Mégane gt220 wagons, sorry, estates over there? Plenty of room and decent go. Great old school induction growl too.

Diesel is significantly cheaper here before you even factor in fuel consumption. Also if you're self employed you can claim VAT on diesel but not on petrol...

Yeti boot really isn't that big. Tall, but small floorspace.

I’d love to have enough land to grow a crop that would be suitable for ethanol production- maybe sugar beet would grow in Ireland? I have no clue about agriculture though.

You don't need the land, just the equipment... As far as I know there's many methods that utilise general organic waste. Could be an interesting industry

We’ve a place in the rural south West, plan is eventually to retire there, so only use hire cars and old motorbikes I’ve stashed there atm. I wouldn’t buy anything too exotic on the grounds that getting anybody to fix or service it would be a major pita, Scoobys don’t seem to popular down our way, even with the boy racers. May not be an issue if it’s not your regular drive.

Annoyingly everything points to diesel in Ireland. Factor in the reality that the only drives I'll be doing between now and when i move home, are the long motorway drives to holyhead for the trips home at xmas and again in early 2020.

Maybe a yeti with a tow hitch for a track car is the sensible option

Can you run modern diesels on ethanol?

In rural Ireland everyone owns a rally car, so scoobies would be at home ha ha

This.

I hope you've got your quilted Scooby/ Marlboro jacket ready for standing around carparks in the rain at meets :)

No, but pretty much any/every petrol car can run on Ethanal/Methanol - you just need to remove rubber parts that will degrade and swap them to a more modern equivalent.

Buy E500 estate, run on your own methanol, wallop.

Pay €1800 a year on motor tax

But pay nothing in fuel duty

On that note, I keep meaning to ask if you want a pair of these to go with your wheels?

Or were you going to get some 911 branded ones?

@Colm89 - are there any exemptions for older cars? If space isn't an issue, wouldn't it be best to go for something sensible + something fun (supercharged mk1 MX5 and/or a motorbike)?

Edit:

‎There are a number of exempt vehicles:

Vehicles (including any cycle with an attachment for propelling it by mechanical power) not exceeding 400 kilograms in weight unladen adapted and used for invalids

Do you recon you could loose 150Kg off a Caterham 7 while making it invalid-friendly?

There is an 03 impreza for £350 on facebook.

Needs work ;)

5k, under 3.0, estate, fast & fun:

blob eye Impreza wagon wrx with ppp

I just found a great car on Auto Trader.
http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201909172298956?atmobcid=soc3

Banger.

Absolutely ditch those mats.

Was going to recommend something similar. Just moved to Ireland with wife & daughter and got a diesel Corsa and an MX-5.

Also, I believe some of the bike-engined Caterhams were sub-400kg!

bike-engined

'busa-mini it is then.

...and a diesel Yeti ;)

Sadly the thoughts of owning a vw diesel are a bit vomit inducing