Buying advice for my bro

[steve_earwig]

Hi there. For more than a year now my brother has been talking about trading his boring Bora for a Monaro ( ) and he's asking me what I think. What I think is it'll be a car he'd never be able to drive - urban fuel consumption measured in gallons per mile, insurance companies planning their next vacation, Chancellor Eyebrows looking to him to bail out the economy, a line of police cars following him watching his every move...

I was thinking maybe I'm a bit out of touch so I thought I'd ask you guys before I got back to him. What do you reckon, you only live once or you'd have to be insane?

If it helps, he lives in Hertfordshire near the A10 (GATSOs every 6 inches), cars already rejected by my sis-in-law: RX8, MX5 and a 330 Coupe because of the driving position.

[mjb]

I'd love one

~400bhp, RWD, looks very comfortable, big boot... Sounds good to me

[Doggy]

Would have killed for one a few years ago when I had my 3.0 Omega.....

I'm a reformed character these days, happy with slow, sensible diesels

I'd buy a 530D if I didn't need an estate with room in the back.

[mjb]

I'd buy a 530D if I didn't need an estate with room in the back.

Ones from a couple of revisions ago were quite spacious behind...

[Doggy]

Looked at some E39's, (97-04). The boot was reasonably long & wide, but the boot floor was amazingly high, about 9/10 inches below the windows

[steve_earwig]

I took my sis-in-law for a trial fitting in a 5-series, I'm guessing it was an E34 because it was that sort of age. The problems was that, because she's so tiny, by the time we'd got the seat somewhere she could use all the controls her head was only a couple of inches from the windscreen. Fail.

[Welly]

Missed this first time round, I know a (nice) client of ours on his second Monaro and he loves them.

Overall mpg is about 23 if you're very carefull or 17-ish when pressing on.

They're a simple old brute and probably fairly trouble free in the early years but I'd expect mucho suspension drama's later on as it's quite a heavy machine.

My friend reports it's more of a straight line blaster/tarmac muncher rather than a pointy grippy thing. He said that trying to drive quickly point to point was like threading the Titanic up a back stairwell

Your Bro could do a lot worse than hopping in a Focus ST3 for a test - a 2/3 year old low miler is around £10,000.00 now, great engine with huge low down torque and there are endless supplies of little upgrades if he fancies. Plus her indoors will love it.

[steve_earwig]

I'll suggest it, although I think he'll consider one a little too "boy racer".

[Welly]

A bit racey I suppose but in a nice metalic dark grey I think you'd get way with it. At the moment all the ST drivers I see are 30 to 40's age but I suppose once the prices fall to £5/6K then they could start to fall into the hands of the scumo's (like Impreza's have now ).

A Golf GTi is an appealing alternative but they'd have higher mileage and the "oh my god it's a VW, we can charge whatever we like" price tag

[steve_earwig]

I don't think a Glof would be enough of a change from the Bora he's hoping to chop in for it

I suppose my "boy racer" opinion comes from the pictures of one on Honest John being a bright "come and get me copper!" orange.