Evrala , 1 day ago (edited 22 hours ago)

Import something old and fun! Cars from smaller countries have lower mileage and can be cheap because they aren’t as valuable as a comparable car from the US. It isn’t hard to find a 25 year old car with about 50,000 miles on it.

JDM cars are especially nice now because of how weak the YEN is. Look outside the popular JDM cars and there are tons of things with easy to find parts for dirt cheap.

Or hell, get a not top trim of a popular model, and you can get something cheap. Want a station wagon built on the same platform as the Nissan Skyline? The Automatic Stageas are cheaper because tuners don’t want them because they’re an automatic and don’t have the world famous RB25 engine.

Nissan Rasheens with the 1500cc engine are easy to maintain and have an engine that was used in some American cars, get the first true AWD CUV for about $5000 plus import fees.

Another cheap option is a Toyota Caldina, get a reliable awd station wagon with a nice interior for 7 or 8 grand including import fees. (Avoid the 2000ish GTT version with a turbo, turbo manifold is prone to warping on that engine and said manifold is hard to find in the US as those engines generally didnt sell in the US)
Edit: looks like Caldinas have gone up in price recently.