[sramdev9]

Congratulations kami on getting the driving license!!

My suggestion would be to look for an old baleno. Most of the cars would be nearing their 15 years life (considering Maruti phased it out in 2007). The car was powerful and has great mod potentials. Also it was feature loaded (2006-07 VXI even had the climate contol AC).

You can find a well maintained car for less than 200k!! I use to own a 2005 LXI model that i got for 60k!!!

Whatever car you choose, best of luck and drive safe!!

[srirajkota]

Go for a superb 2014 onwards, I just bought one and got it remapped by REVO. The stock is 160 bhp and 250 nm torque, post remap is 200 BHP and 350 nm torque. The drive is peppy and fun.

[vtecblast]

Boy! When I was 18 If I had a choice, I would have picked up a W124 E220. I still love the vehicle but won't pick it up as a primary vehicle. Personally, I feel project car and primary car should be 2 different vehicles and project vehicle shouldn't be fast. It should be fun and a cheap one. Race it, break it and fix it
Project cars I want to suggest (are totally south of your shortlisted one)

1. Maruti Zen: If it's a Steel or Carbon then you're in for a treat, swap the 1.0l with 1.3l (petrol). This thing would be real fast and you would be hitting street legal speeds in no time. Obviously, a real fun-to-drive.

2. Old Baleno: Mod friendly vehicle, has huge scope of handling unreal power.

3. Suzuki Swift (M13A or G13B, I'm bit confused with the engine here) These can be turbo'ed and Its not required to explain to you how amazingly fast this car would be.

My suggestions list is limited to these because you want to learn about cars it's better to start with these simple one, additionally these cars can be easily maintained and obviously will be fast and fun-to-drive.

If you need something modern, I'll suggest you to buy a rather new vehicle (VW stable's 1.0l TSI or Renault Duster) . I understand your point of not spending your parents' money, but in the long run a new car would be a better investment than a low-life pre-owned one.

Happy driving!

[Kanboy]

Congratulations Kami on becoming Legal To Drive...

My advice to you would be to keep it simple.

1. Buy Any Cheap hatchback like a brio, zen, figo etc below 3.5lacs with a manual transmission and least number of sensors and most of all availability of aftermarket performance parts within your grasp, learn about the basic driving characteristics of a car like understeer, oversteer, gear ratios on turns, speed control through basic foot lift off etc.. being young and keen on uptuning you will land up learning everything from Engine to suspension to bodywork to Interiors to Electrical and it will teach you how to better uptune the car without adding parts. If you ever mess up, which does tend to happen when you are young & experimenting, it wont be heavy on your pocket. Then add forced induction, which will teach you about the turbo/Supercharger, piping, intercooler, cooling system, major ecm upgrade etc. These humble hatches teach you about limitations of a vehicle and its ergonomics.
My advice comes as you already have a Laura and other vehicles, in your household and these you can use for your Highway drives.

2. After you feel you are ready for an upgrade in a year or two, sell the car and buy a nice tuner sedan/saloon as your experience will better guide you to make Reliable decisions.

3. Incase you are inclined towards off roading then just buy a Gypsy hands down.

4. Learn to use tools. If you want to be a tuner learn to do atleast the basics by yourself as this will help you to know your car and be of great help incase of failure diagnostics.

5. Last but not the least As someone mentioned earlier in the Thread "Become friends with a GOOD mechanic". Mines on my speed dial
I guess that's all I can add here.

Rest have a Safe and Happy Tuning experience.

[IshaanIan]

I might be a little prejudiced here but my vote goes to the Kizashi and here are my reasons:

• Loads of mechanical grip from the chassis just waiting to be exploited
• Strong block that is rated to handle more than double the power the car produces in stock form
• Car was designed and engineered to use a 3.6L GM sourced V6 but after Suzuki's falling out with GM, they stuck with their own 2.4 4cyl this means that there's load of room in the engine bay which would be a boon when working on the car
• Reliability is strong since there's not much high tech gizmos that the car relies on
• The braking package is really good in stock form so you can move straight toward horsepower gains
• One of the safest cars in its class at the time so in case the worst happens you can be rest assured that silly things like airbags not opening, will not happen

[sramdev9]

Originally Posted by vtecblast

Boy! When I was 18 If I had a choice, I would have picked up a W124 E220. I still love the vehicle but won't pick it up as a primary vehicle. Personally, I feel project car and primary car should be 2 different vehicles and project vehicle shouldn't be fast. It should be fun and a cheap one. Race it, break it and fix it
Project cars I want to suggest (are totally south of your shortlisted one)

1. Maruti Zen: If it's a Steel or Carbon then you're in for a treat, swap the 1.0l with 1.3l (petrol). This thing would be real fast and you would be hitting street legal speeds in no time. Obviously, a real fun-to-drive.

2. Old Baleno: Mod friendly vehicle, has huge scope of handling unreal power.

3. Suzuki Swift (M13A or G13B, I'm bit confused with the engine here) These can be turbo'ed and Its not required to explain to you how amazingly fast this car would be.

My suggestions list is limited to these because you want to learn about cars it's better to start with these simple one, additionally these cars can be easily maintained and obviously will be fast and fun-to-drive.

If you need something modern, I'll suggest you to buy a rather new vehicle (VW stable's 1.0l TSI or Renault Duster) . I understand your point of not spending your parents' money, but in the long run a new car would be a better investment than a low-life pre-owned one.

Happy driving!

Maruti Zen Steel/Carbon are very rare cars to find. Most of them I've seen are in the KL region.

Amazing cars though. From the time when Maruti used to manufacture good fun-to-drive cars!!

[kamilharis]

Congrats on your new plans.

Since you said that your parents had given you a healthy budget of 30-40Lakhs but you don't want to spend that much on your first car (I appreciate that!), my recommendation would be to put your money on new POLO/Vento/Rapid siblings. They are mod-friendly and chuckable.

If you are adamant about getting a used car, try shopping for a City or Civic. Or the Etios petrol which GTO recommended. If you wanna really play with a car and try whatever you could, put your money on an old, good condition 1.6L Baleno. You can get an excellent condition car for under 2L and the mod potential of that car is great!

[84.monsoon]

For the budget and speed that you are looking for, the only answer is a used Abarth Punto. Although not common, listings do come up every now and then for 2015 or 2016 vintage models around Rs. 7 lakhs. Here is an example. https://www.olx.in/item/fiat-punto-a...iid-1629504683

[nirmaljusdoit]

I would second GTO’s advice and suggest the same - Factory horses are factory horses. Unless you have a lot of time, energy and money on your hand stay away from tuning and modifications. Not all would like to get their hands dirty and just want a start it and get going type of car to get their thrills from.

Some cars falling in your budget would be

- Honda city
- Honda Civic
- Honda Accord V6
- Skoda Laura
- Swift
- Ford Figo
- Polo GT TSI

You may also get in with the Germans (325i, 320d) if you have other cars in your family's garage. Maintaining the Germans is easy if you have a good FNG and parts isn’t an issue. Some downtime is always to be expected and comes with the ownership experience.

Driving on Indian roads comes with its own set of challenges and we are the road accident capital of the world. Going fast may not always be worth it.

Wishing you many miles of happiness

[car_guy1998]

First of all, congrats on completing 18 Kami!

I would suggest you to have a look at a well-maintained Skoda Laura TSI as it is a hoot to drive and get the mods done as per your choice!

But, the only problem with the Skoda is spares are expensive! Apart from that, Laura TSI is absolutely fun to drive!

If you want to go for a newer one, then look no further than Polo GT TSI! It might be expensive to purchase but worth it IMO! Before purchasing the GT TSI, be prepared for the infamous DQ200 gearbox failure as well as this issue is reported in this forum by many GT TSI users!

[Rshreyansh]

Kami, first of all congrats on getting the license!
What a way to kick-start your automotive journey, nice.

My suggestion would be, either the Polo GT TDI(the one with the 1.6 mill), it packs a great punch, resale value not being its strongest point will help your deal, if you want to go the diesel way.
If you're looking for a petrol car then the Swift with the 1.2 or the Honda City 1.5 Vtec, both are reasonably fast, not to say mod-friendly as well.

Do let us know what you chose at the end.

All the best for your hunt.

[Kami]

Originally Posted by IshaanIan

I might be a little prejudiced here but my vote goes to the Kizashi and here are my reasons:

• Loads of mechanical grip from the chassis just waiting to be exploited
• Strong block that is rated to handle more than double the power the car produces in stock form
• Car was designed and engineered to use a 3.6L GM sourced V6 but after Suzuki's falling out with GM, they stuck with their own 2.4 4cyl this means that there's load of room in the engine bay which would be a boon when working on the car
• Reliability is strong since there's not much high tech gizmos that the car relies on
• The braking package is really good in stock form so you can move straight toward horsepower gains
• One of the safest cars in its class at the time so in case the worst happens you can be rest assured that silly things like airbags not opening, will not happen

Thanks, messaged a couple of Kizashi sellers but I'll only be able to finalize something after the lockdown ends, the main issue is that it is FWD so I need to forget my plans about welded differential for drifting.

The car is a petrol, makes over 150bhp without turbo (so I can add turbo to it), and easy to work on.

Toyota Camry seems similar in that regard, but is also FWD :((

[TB16]

Being a kizashi owner, I'll not recommend it over a polo or a octavia mainly due to its weight. It's a heavy car with not so sorted dynamics (suspension). Other than its quite alright. Go for the manual in case you do (AT is troublesome in the long run).

[Shanky_1002]

I would agree with GTO, a car should be fun to drive, a fast car may not necessarily be fun
If I were you either I would get a Gypsy, it has fairly simple mechanicals, easy to repair and maintain oodles of fun on and off the road or I would get a Polo GT TSI, it's a pocket rocket if tuned optimally, fast enough to shame cars a segment above and compact enough to carve way out of traffic in ease. In case you're looking for a Polo GT TSI there is one immaculately kept with a friend who is looking to part with his ride due to pandemic, it comes with a long list of upgrades tastefully done. Check out the link below in TBHP classifieds.

https://classifieds.team-bhp.com/buy...gen/Polo.html/

PS: I've posted an ad on my friend's behalf and not associated with it in any other way, just trying to help a friend and BHPian connect.

[Kami]

Also, is there anything in this list that's RWD? Everything seems to be FWD, I wanted to also occasionally drift (on a track obviously) but the only cars I can find are the old Contessas and the Premier Padminis, both of which I could get but I'd prefer not to as the engines are pretty weak.
I could engine-swap but since there don't seem to be a lot of popular ones, I'm not sure which engines I could put in and it might require a lot of welding, something that I'm not good at.

Some of the old BMWs seem to be RWD as well but mainly automatic so I'm avoiding them. I don't really mind the learning curve and I have been learning about engine modifications for the last couple of weeks.

I have boiled it down to these three criterias: Petrol, RWD, makes over 120bhp and no turbo stock (so higher possible power gains), but nothing seems to fit this criteria.
It's just frustrating that you can get a 350z in the states for $3k but something comparable would cost well over 10 times the price here.