{"id":2138410,"date":"2026-09-10T18:25:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-10T15:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2138410"},"modified":"2026-09-10T18:25:00","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T15:25:00","slug":"im-looking-for-a-post-graduation-project-car-what-should-i-buy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2138410","title":{"rendered":"I&#8217;m Looking For A Post-Graduation Project Car! What Should I Buy?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"columns-holder\">\n<div class=\"add-on-google-widget\">\n<div class=\"add-on-google-heading\">Add Jalopnik on Google:<\/div>\n<div class=\"add-on-google-buttons-row\">\n                    <button type=\"button\" class=\"add-on-google-btn\" id=\"preferred-source\">Preferred Source<\/button><br \/>\n                    <a href=\"https:\/\/profile.google.com\/cp\/Cg0vZy8xMXBneTRxX2Zw\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"add-on-google-btn\" id=\"google-discover\">Google Discover<\/a>\n                <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"columns-holder \">\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Mason just finished grad school and has a job lined up, but the start date isn&#8217;t for a few months. He wants to get a cheap project car that he and his dad can tinker with. He has a $5,000 budget for something fun, reasonably reliable, and ideally with three pedals. What car should he buy?<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><em>(Welcome back to<\/em> <em>What Car Should You Buy<\/em><em>? Where we give real people real advice about buying cars. Do you want us to help you find a car?<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/docs.google.com\/a\/jalopnik.com\/forms\/d\/1GWJ6HKuZLPR1Hhz9C8HdiVtpgPXyI48TR87z_2UuE-Y\/edit\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Submit your story on our form.<\/em><\/a><em>)<\/em><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Here is the scenario:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">I just finished Grad school before the summer and I have a few months (potentially longer) before I start my new full time job in Chicago. In the meantime, I&#8217;ll be living with my parents in Cincinnati and am looking for a fun car to tinker on with my dad before I move to Chicago to start work.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">I&#8217;m looking for something that is cheap (sub $5k) and fun to drive that I can wrench on a bit, while still being reliable to drive a handful of times a month to get groceries and make day trips. It doesn&#8217;t have to be practical either. I dare say, I want it to be impractical since this will likely be my last truly &#8220;selfish&#8221; car until I hit a mid-life crisis. Ideally, it&#8217;ll be a solid car as-is but there&#8217;ll still be room for a few fun improvements I can upgrade with my dad. I&#8217;d like the car to be fun to drive, so stick-shift preferred, yet still reliable enough to last another 5+ years without substantial or expensive work (student loans still need to be paid). It&#8217;d be great if I could keep this as a second car once my needs outgrow it, but not a necessity.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<h3 dir=\"ltr\"><strong>Quick Facts:<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><strong>Budget:<\/strong> $5,000<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><strong>Location:<\/strong> Cincinnati, OH<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><strong>Daily Driver:<\/strong> Yes<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><strong>Wants:<\/strong> Fun, cheap, ideally manual<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><strong>Doesn&#8217;t want:<\/strong> Practical<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"columns-holder \">\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Mason, congratulations on your graduation. Grad school is no joke, and while I have some good memories of that time, I don&#8217;t wish to go back. An excellent way to celebrate and transition to your next stage is a project car. You mentioned getting a &#8220;selfish&#8221; car before you hit a mid-life crisis; I say why not get it out of your system while you can still enjoy it. And nothing says mid-life crisis car better than a Corvette.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cincycredit.com\/details\/used-1985-chevrolet-corvette\/122908113?utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_source=cars.com&amp;utm_campaign=cars.com_VDP_deeplink&amp;utm_csid=14cab0ea-8282-4735-a11d-400838f1929c\" target=\"_blank\">This is a 1985 model with only 85,000 miles.<\/a> It has an excellent 80&#8217;s color combo of white exterior, red interior, and awesome stripes. There is a &#8220;four-on-the-floor,&#8221; pop-up headlamps, and a retro-fantastic digital dashboard. While this car looks pretty mint, I imagine at this $5,000 price point it probably needs a little work. But you have an old-school GM V8 and a robust &#8216;Vette community for parts and support. This car will provide many hours of fun and cruising with your pop.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"columns-holder \">\n<p>Oh man, you and your dad are going to have such a good time with this project, Mason. I also promise I get the urge to find something super cheap that gives the two of you near-infinite opportunities to get your hands dirty. But I also want you and your dad to enjoy yourselves instead of getting overwhelmed by projects. Maybe it&#8217;s worth spending a little more to get a car that looks like it&#8217;s pretty well-sorted and then start improving things from there.<\/p>\n<p>For example, here&#8217;s <u><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/sandbusedcars.com\/bhphvdp\/23803064\/Used-1979-MG-B-for-sale-in-Lititz-PA-17543\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">an orange 1979 MG B<\/a><\/u> listed not far from you with 48,000 miles on it for $5,995. I know that&#8217;s a little more than you wanted to spend, but it appears to be an entire car that runs and drives. You could take your dad for a spin in it the day you pick it up, kicking the bonding off immediately. That doesn&#8217;t mean there won&#8217;t be anything for you to do to it, though. &#8220;Very minimal rust&#8221; still means some rust, especially in Ohio, and it&#8217;s British. Even in great condition, something else is always going to break on you. That&#8217;s the MG guarantee.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s also small and light, which should make it easier to work on, and parts should be pretty cheap. I mean, it&#8217;s an old MG. It won&#8217;t be safe in a crash, but you&#8217;re young and don&#8217;t have kids yet. Who cares? Just don&#8217;t crash with your dad in the car. Or at all. Actually, that would make a solid first project for the two of you \u2014 upgrade the brakes on your new-to-you, near-50-year-old MG B.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"columns-holder \">\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Hey Mason, I hope you enjoyed life before entering a full-time big-boy job, it&#8217;s all downhill from here! I&#8217;m kidding (sort of). I found a little bundle of joy in your price range that will bring you lots of smiles and lots of opportunities to wrench and upgrade it to make it even spunkier: a six-speed manual <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cars.com\/vehicledetail\/3d89f655-efac-4c10-81e1-4d19eaa9d9ca\/?sid=3d8d1629-f758-4d7b-bb81-e16d458833e9\" target=\"_blank\">Cool Blue Metallic 2006 Mini Cooper S Convertible<\/a>! It&#8217;s a bit far from you, but if your dad is willing to tinker with you then I&#8217;m sure he&#8217;s willing to drive you out to retrieve this beauty.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">If you want something fun to drive, an R52 is what you want. Its supercharged four-cylinder sends 168 horsepower to the front wheels through a Getrag six-speed manual transmission, and it only weighs a little over 100 lbs more than a coupe at 2,848 lbs.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">This example has about 138,000 miles, and looks surprisingly clean for the price it&#8217;s listed at. These first-generation Minis are not known to be especially reliable, but the ad says it runs and drives, which is a good sign! I bet you could haggle the price down a bit given that it&#8217;s being sold as-is, so you&#8217;d have enough cash leftover to get started with some performance modifications to really take the fun factor to the next level. I know this is going to be the car for you, so let me be the first to welcome you to the Mini Gang!<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Add Jalopnik on Google: Preferred Source Google Discover Mason just finished grad school and has a job lined up, but the start date isn&#8217;t for a few months. He wants to get a cheap project car that he and his dad can tinker with. He has a $5,000 budget for something fun, reasonably reliable, and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,247],"class_list":["post-2138410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-jalopnik-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2138410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2138410"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2138410\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2138410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2138410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2138410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}