Yahoo Autos Here's $4,500. Buy a winter beater
Thanksgiving is approaching, and those of us in the Snowbelt or mountainous regions might be switching our summers or all-seasons for snow tires, putting our weekend cars on a trickle charger and trying to figure out where we stashed our scraper in the spring. Depending on where you live, you might have already gotten some snow flurries, perhaps even while your kids were trick-or-treating. Those with the driveway space may already have a winter beater, while others might be scouring used car listings for something that won't break your heart to see covered in road salt. That's what we're doing with this exercise.
This week, we've got a limited budget of $4,500 to buy a winter beater. What that means to you depends on where you live. Around the Great Lakes, the terrain is pretty flat, but we can get serious snowfall, and the road salt will take its toll on some sheetmetal. In the Pacific Northwest, you might be preparing for just the occasional snow and ice, but have steep hills to deal with. Maybe you've got the worst of all worlds where you live. Either way, this car is meant to take the punishments winter driving doles out, allowing you to preserve your more beloved vehicle(s) until spring. You might also want to think about reliability, as breaking down in the freezing cold is dangerous.
So here are some rules.
The $4,500 budget is for the car only. If you need winter tires, we'll pretend you've got some extra dough set aside specifically for that purpose.
If you don't currently live in an area that gets much snow or ice, pretend you do. Or maybe you're planning some ski weekends, or got a winter job giving tours of Bobby Orr's birthplace.
The car can be anything, even a rear-wheel-drive convertible, so long as you can be convincing about a viable use case for winter driving.
Pretty simple. Now let's see which staffers are going to survive to watch the Final Four:
Mazda2
Senior Editor John Beltz Snyder: In the winter of 2010-11, during my tenure at Winding Road, we had a multi-month loan of a 2011 Mazda2. During that time, we had a weather event the media were calling a "Snowpocalypse." I had the Mazda2, but the Mazda2 had a set of Bridgestone Blizzaks. My wife and I had a hankering for some of Wolverine State Brewing Company's excellent nachos, so we headed out in "The Deuce," hoping it could manage the many inches of still-accumulating snow. It not only managed the unplowed roads, but it managed to embarrass large SUV drivers struggling for grip while our knobby, narrow tires allowed us to easily outmaneuver (and outbrake) the few drivers confident enough to brave the storm. Wolverine Brewing was open, we got our nachos, and we had the place to ourselves.
Another great thing about living with the Mazda2 in winter is the time saved brushing snow off the car. Just a few swipes, and it's clear.
There are a number of Mazda2s currently available under $4,500, most of them of the 2011 model year and couple under 150,000 miles. Sadly, any I can find with a manual transmission are over budget, but I'll take what I can get. See you at the nacho spot, if you can make it.
2003 Ford Focus SVT
Road Test Editor Zac Palmer: I grew up in Michigan and went to college at the second snowiest university in the country, and I did it all in a slammed front-wheel-drive hatchback. Winter tires, folks! It was hilariously good fun, and the constant hand-brake turns taught me a lot about car control from a young age. So, I present to you another front-wheel-drive hatchback in the form of this 2003 Ford Focus SVT. It's silver over black, so nothing special from an appearance perspective, but it's going to be covered in road grime and salt all winter anyway.
At a little over 200,000 miles, this Focus might be a little tired, but there's still plenty of life left in this 2.0-liter four-cylinder to have some fun, and I don't want to put a pristine example of this sweet Ford Performance car through winter slop anyway. The factory sport suspension should make it a good time no matter if snow is on the ground or not. And just like the old days, I'd slap a set of winter tires on this thing, and slide it around to my heart's content.
