It's tax season, what does that mean?

Tax returns. Glorious, glorious tax returns for us po' folk who have been in school.

I'm getting myself into a bit of a tizzy over cars. After struggling for a little while with debt after graduating last April (had to even sell my Subaru ) I am now in a comfortable enough financial position to buy a car if I so desire.

This all came about when I wanted to start doing time attack/touge in Edmonton. Since I have currently curtailed my rallying efforts (this comes back up later in this post, just wait for it ), I was looking to have some fun on track. Well, my 2200 pound Civic CX is perfect for that, right? But, I'm going to have to run the right rims and rubber 'cause there is no point in showing up with crappy tires and lead weights for wheels, right? So that'll be $1600 for enkei's and rubber. Plus the initial $2200 purchase price of the car... but it will still be a 100hp civic, so some more jam is in order, right? Motor swap is too much downtime, so turbocharging must be the answer. Don't want to deal with fab work, so edelbrock or greddy is the way to go. $4k (I know this is grm, and I know I could probably do a turbo civic for under $2k, but I am being realistic about my current apartment living/downtime/time available to be in the shop).

Huh, this is starting to get expensive. For this amount of money I could have (as a daily driver that could be tracked, descending expensiveness):

• 1991 Legacy turbo that is completely rally prepped and ready to hit the stages with high quality equipment and a brand new 18' trailer
• A E39 540i 6 speed or e36 M3
• A 1995 WRX STi Type RA
• A LT1 6 speed camaro
• A 2.5RS
• A mint Sprint Turbo (ha! betcha didn't see that one coming!)

Of course, it would need to be a daily driver (for a while, until the fall roll's around). So, I'm a LOT confused and don't know what to do. I do know that the STi has no negatives that I can think of, same with the Sprint Turbo (obviously with the caveat that the sprint is much cooler than the STi ). The legacy is the same deal, it just has a cage in it so dd'ing shouldn't be an issue. The 540i or M3 would be amazing, but starting towards being mildly impractical for -40*C weather and lots of snow for 6 months of the year. The Camaro falls into a similiar category, but is cheap enough to not really worry about salt/rust and cold. Plus camaro's make good heat!

I've driven the STi, the camaro, the sprint, and the 2.5RS. The STi gets props for doing everything well, but the Camaro is BITCHIN . The 2.5RS is the same as the STi but toned down and getting significantly better gas mileage/less tickets. And the sprint is a sprint, what can I say?

NEVER mix your DD with your "competition" race car. If it does rally or door-to-door racing, it needs to be a second/spare car (and not have payments). Heck, I don't even like autocrossing my DD.

That's my 2 cents.

I am biased - the Leggy and rally it!

In reply to Javelin:

I genuinely want to meet the guy the DD's and door-to-door races the same car.

ShadowSix wrote: In reply to Javelin: I genuinely want to meet the guy the DD's and door-to-door races the same car.

I know some guys that did/do. Granted most of them are retired and have bank anyways, but still.

I know back in the day nearly the entire SCCA Showroom Stock field was like that

Javelin wrote: *NEVER* mix your DD with your "competition" race car. If it does rally or door-to-door racing, it *needs* to be a second/spare car (and not have payments). Heck, I don't even like autocrossing my DD. That's my 2 cents.

Fair enough. I wouldn't "plan" on doing an actual stage rally until this fall (unless if some stuff were to come through, but that is for another thread). I actually have a spare Volvo 242 kicking around that is perfectly daily drivable as well that is inspected, so I wouldn't be stranded.

And importing a car from the states is definitely on my mind, my god BMW's are cheap down there!

Edit-

I genuinely want to meet the guy the DD's and door-to-door races the same car.

Well, I've ripped a control arm off (ripped bolts out of the unibody) doing rally-x before (1000kms from home), fixed it, and continued racing. NBD

That's not what tax season means for me.

ShadowSix wrote: In reply to Javelin: I genuinely want to meet the guy the DD's and door-to-door races the same car.

There are a few loonies in Lemons that do this. Myself, I don't want to drive a car with a cage unless I'm wearing a helmet, and don't see wearing a helmet to drive to work.

HiTempguy wrote: Tax returns.

We all deal w/ tax returns. It's the REFUNDS that are the fun part.

If we break even this year, I'll be happy. I just don't want to pay in.

Your goal should be paying in nothing and getting back nothing at the end of the year. Or pay in everything at once and take interest on the money throughout the year. No sense in giving the gub'ment a year long interest free loan. The best returns I get are the $0 ones.