If you are like me, and keep a car until it is near death, buying new for a sports car is best.
Consider break-in period and regular use. Are you 100% keeping it forever? you will be concerned about long term wear and tear. Never keep a car long? does one care if you drive it at 80mph out of a parking lot with 10 miles on the odometer? No one does. I watched BMW and mini dealers with people who are cosmetic and temporal thinkers. They tear off right out of the parking lot. I saw it with WRX's as well.

if you are planning on modifying it and beating on it, probably does not matter. Although, new still would last longer for doing that too.

This decision is best gauged by looking at the general owner of the car.

Corvette? Most likely some middle aged guy babying the shit out of his dream car, hard parks to show off to chicks, cruises along and revs at lights to show off. How often do you run across the track/drag enthusiast vette owner. I rarely ever meet them and majority of vettes I encounter are always stock.

Same can be applied to Porsche owners.

S2k? With younger owners, all I see is stance and throwing in power mods to do nothing but straight line it. Older owners are definitely track/autox guys or just have it as their fun street car.

Civic/integra/rsx? Stance, engine swaps, fart can, shit cosmetic mods, *everything the Honda fanbase stereotype is known for*. Very rarely do I ever see a clean and proper build.

Brz/frs? I either see fully stock, fully stance, or hidden autox/track car.

As always, do you want to gamble your worries on the previous owners or do you want peace of mind knowing you will be in control of what goes wrong with the car.

After owning nothing but used fun/sports cars before my BRZ, (civic si and gti) I'm tired of gambling on previous owners. I'll most likely only buy these types of cars used if i know the owner personally or if there's some serious documentation of the car's past.

Edit: :O I've been blessed by Tocat

I justified a new car, given these two main points:

1. its a sports car, and some people throttle-monkey a sports car in its early years of life. So it's nice to properly break in a car the first 1k miles…..3k miles, what ever so you know the car got done right , and not taken over 4k rpm , rippin her up like a raped ape.

2. If you keep the car the initial 8-10 years at least, then the depreciation isn't as bad as someone who buys new and sells 3-5 years into new ownership. Plus the first 100-120k miles is the sweet spot of a cars life, 99% of people don't experience any major issues during this time… easy sailing.

….. kind of #3. the only other sports car that I'd like to drive/own, new costs about $100k . I couldn't bring my self (for a few main reasons) to spend that much on a new car , so to get into something for $25-30k new, at about a 1/4 of that $100k price was welcomed. Not so sure on long term desirability between the Twins vs. the $100k car (say a Porsche 911 Carrera S , or even a newer Cayman S) will be , but there is surely a major price difference to be reckoned with.

This ^^^^


My version of #3 is that although I could easily afford a shiny new Porsche I rack up so many miles for work I would destroy it's value in the first year or two. That would make me feel bad. The FRS gives me a car that is inexpensive enough that I can wear it out without losing my shirt or feeling guilty.

Go get a used but make sure it's under 20,000 miles and is from a responsible owner. The difference of 10-15k can be your mod foundation.

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