Loans on weekend/fun cars.
 

Does anyone here do this?
Basically my situation is that Ive got a 99 jeep cherokee that I love. Its only got 90k miles, its reliable, its safe, its truly all-weather, and its a great camping vehicle. However, I need to get back into a sports car. I just love driving, and cruisin a jeep is not much of a driving experience.
I want to purchase a car for auto-x, HPDE, and possibly TA, and other forms of non wheel-to-wheel racing.
My options are to take a loan on a 350z/E46 BMW and be paying for awhile, and have a weekend/auto-x only car(I am NOT taking the risk of a high speed mix-up on an open track in a car I owe 15k on.)

My other option is to buy an e36/240/e30 and just build a fun car I dont owe money on. However, I will certainly be sacrificing the on-street fun(lets be honest, driving in a car that grabs attention is fun), and ill obviously be sacrificing several years worth of performance engineering either way.


How many people here owe money on their fun/weekend car and race it?

I don't really believe in having a fun weekend car and a race car. I guess you have to ask yourself do you want to have a loan out on an expensive car and then take it to events and beat the piss out of it and worry about breaking stuff and having to buy the parts to fix it. I would rather have a cheap car to auto x and do what you are talking about. That way when stuff breaks or god forbid something happens and you smack it up you have money to fix it or just junk it and buy another cheap car.

I have a nice car that I weekend drive (well hardly) and then I have my cheaper cars that I race or just beat on because they are cheap and easy to fix.

I have a loan on my camaro and I plan to drag it but just haven't had the time. I do drive it on the street on nice days and I did spend around 12k on the car. But my d/d is a $500 beater of a pickup truck

2008 Honda accord daily driver (payment) / 2004 Subaru WRX (Payed off!) weekend fun car, best of both worlds.....reliability in one and crazy corner destroying fun in the other!

Honestly, if you really want to drive your car hard, you don't want the stress of knowing if it breaks you cant get to work on Monday, just get a fun weekend build car. Everyone wants to drive a nice 2009 sti....evo....or whatever, but it's just not realistic unless you have a 5 minute commute to work. Plus the level you can mod your car is completely limited by what you are using it for, obviously you'll be less inclined to heavily mod your DD because it will become stiff, the idle will get wonky, the gas mileage will suck. I'm happy to say that I don't get buyers remorse when I buy stupid stiff racing suspension parts for my WRX. Nor will I care when my idle sucks because I installed hot cams and TGV deletes. Definitely wont get upset when my summer tires wear out faster then my accords all seasons. I think you get the idea....

Do yourself a favor and get a PROJECT car that is seperate from your daily driver.

Maybe i mis-worded it. Regardless of what I get, the jeep is staying. Its too perfect of a daily to get rid of. Thanks for the input so far guys.

I know what your saying. Buy a newer nicer car with a loan, only drive it on weekends/at the track, daily drive the jeep. OR daily drive the jeep anyways, but buy an older cheaper car outright in cash, not have anything to pay off. Personally, I'd say go for something older with good aftermarket. That way you don't have the car payment, and like you said, less worry about "oh well if I break it i gotta fix it PLUS make the payment this month."

Why would you spend so much money on a car you only plan on racing on the weekends? You would be stupid to buy an e46/350 instead of just building a track ready e36 for less. We have both a track ready but street legal e36 and an 05 e46 DD... Trust me, the e36 gets more attention than the 46.

really? another question, completely OT, but you ever towed anything with your jeep? lol.

Never get a loan on a car you want to race. If it gets wrecked in a race at the track, insurance will not cover it and you have years of car payments for nothing.

If you want a track car, buy something out right. That $400 a month car payment goes along way with the mod budget.

Thats just my 2 cents.

well, that was the issue. If i get a loaned car i cant mod it as much, and its pretty much set to auto-x because i cant risk crashing it.

/thread :-)

Nope, never towed anything with it... I don't even have a tow hitch... :cry: Even if I did though, I don't think I would trust my breaks towing anything remotely heavy... Id be scared even towing a Jet Ski.

With the way the economy is, you can find good deals on other people's track ready race cars. One of my friends was looking at a few older race cars that included a trailer and lots of spares for $5k-$10K.

Try this site:
http://www.race-cars.com/

If you want a BMW, I found this M3 on there:
http://www.race-cars.com/carsales/bm...28100502ss.htm
http://www.race-cars.com/carsales/bm...28100502pp.htm

My buddy towed his 18 foot steel open car trailer with his teg all over the place. From PA to OH, Indy, NH, you name it. The Jeep had no problems.

thanks man. My thoughts are, Ive got a place to store and build the car for free outside binghamton NY. Ive got free airflight to/from there with work, but i need a way to move the car to/from the track.

Better question is what car haven't I owed money on and raced. I race everything I buy.

I have so much money into the porsche I am building I am probably gonna baby it for a year or 2. Still do track days but run the car 8/10ths.

^lol. Once i get home and can look into nasa tt and redline ta Id like to see what their class rules are and build a car based around that. I obviously dont want to just build a car to my likings, and end up in an intense class, this is my first venue into racing lol.