Hello and welcome back to the Bespoke Refinement Podcast. I am your host Thomas Till. I am the founder, owner, and operator of Bespoke Refinement.
We are the number one Kansas City car detailing service. Guys, today we’re going to be talking about what is the best car that you can buy on a budget. Now, first let’s define a budget, right?
Because everyone has a budget. You could be a billionaire and say that a Bugatti Chiron and a Koenigsegg Regera are in your budget. But we’re going to be going off of the average American income.
So typically the average income is between $40,000 to $60,000 a year. And if we go off of the Dave Ramsey theory that your car should be 20% of your annual income, we’re going to be talking about $23,000. So let’s talk about what sports cars you can buy that are fun, easily modifiable, and reliable and on a budget.
Something that really anyone can go out and buy. Over the years I’ve had a lot of different Kansas City car detailing clients. And typically what I’ve found is even the guys that purchase a fun sports car that’s worth $20,000 to $30,000, they still want to make sure that it’s perfectly maintained, it’s well taken care of, and the paint is in top-notch shape, and the interior is in perfect condition.
And with our Kansas City car detailing packages, whether you have a Golf GTI or a Bugatti Veyron, we can still ensure that your car is in as perfect of shape as absolutely possible. So we’re going to start with one of my favorites. And ironically I just had one pass me on the highway.
So not only one of my favorite cars, but there’s one right in front of me right now, is the C5 Corvette. So let’s talk about why the C5 Corvette is the best bang for your buck sports car. Well you can buy one with very low miles for between $18,000 to $25,000.
And depending on what you’re looking for, you can get either a base model, fixed roof coupe, or Z06. I’ve owned both over the years. I’ve had base models and I’ve had Z06s.
Now the cool thing about a C5 Corvette is if you go with the base model, you’re going to be getting 350 horsepower out of the box from a car that weighs 3,400 pounds, which is enough to get it a lot of trouble. And just a couple modifications to the C5 Corvette can make it a track weapon, a street racer, or just a fun weekend cruiser. You can even make them a great daily driver.
I daily drove two of the ones that I owned and they were awesome cars to put miles on and drive every day. Just a couple modifications like headers, intake, cam, heads, and a tune, and you’re making 450 horsepower. Coil over suspension, change the seats, because I will admit the seats in a C5 Corvette are horrible.
And you will have a car that performs at the same level as a Porsche GT3 RS for under $30,000. And over the years, different cars that I’ve had the pleasure of working on when it comes to Kansas City car detailing, I’ve learned that a lot of guys that race Porsche GT3 RSs or Lamborghini Super Trofeos, Ferrari Challenge, at some point they all had a modified purpose-built C5 Corvette. So the next car is a BMW E46 M3.
This was a car that over the years I really overlooked. I thought the M3 was just a fancy package that BMW offered on their 3 Series. But several years ago I had a Kansas City car detailing client who owned an E46 M3 and the car had full bolt-ons, they had changed the seats out, put in a half cage to make the chassis more rigid, added coil over suspension, bigger brakes, and to them this car was a fun weekend cruiser, track car, and just a fun weekend warrior car.
And the owner began showing me different videos of him racing the car on track and street racing the car and seeing some of the other vehicles that this car competed against really changed my perspective on the capabilities of the E46 M3. In fact it made it one of my dream cars that I still want to own someday. I think any car guy who grew up playing video games at some point played Need for Speed Most Wanted and ended up driving the BMW M3 GTR, you know the silver and blue one that you get right at the end of the game, such an awesome car.
Alright so the next car on my list is going to be a Volkswagen Golf GTI. The first reason that I love this car is because it is the most unsuspecting sleeper car to anyone. I remember my fiancé and I were walking around downtown one night and I heard a blow off valve from a turbo and I heard some whistling and some popping and a Golf GTI pulled up next to us at a stoplight and she said I would not expect that car to be making those noises and I told her I said that car with the right modifications will give a Corvette a run for its money.
Several years back I had a Kansas City car detailing client who had asked me to give them a ride back to my shop and on our way back he gave me a ride in this lightly modified Volkswagen Golf GTI. Really all the car had on it was an upgraded turbo, tune, and coilover suspension. I’m sure you can see the pattern here coilover suspension is like a must have modification for any sports car that you buy.
I was extremely impressed with this Kansas City car detailing client’s Volkswagen Golf GTI when we got on the highway the car accelerated so smooth so fast and it didn’t feel unsteady it felt extremely smooth extremely delicate at the end of the day guys delicate is fast and smooth is delicate. The final car on my Kansas City car detailing best sports car on a budget list is the Porsche Boxster. A lot of people are at would probably ask why I didn’t say Mazda Miata well because the Porsche Boxster is essentially a mid-engine Miata and it’s cooler it makes more power it looks a lot better than a Miata in my opinion and they make more power.
Several years back I had a Kansas City car detailing client who brought me a Porsche Boxster and this client raced different Porsches and he had everything from GT3 RS’s, Porsche Carrera GT’s, 918 Spiders, GT2 RS’s and he brought me this this Porsche Boxster and I wondered what what is this guy doing with a $17,000 car when he has several million dollar cars and I remember him telling me that that Porsche Boxster was one of the best driver’s cars ever and if you’re looking for a entry-level track car that gets the work done on a track day the Porsche Boxster the S in particular is one of the best sports cars you can buy. Guys thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of Bespoke Automotive Refinement podcast if you’re looking to book a Kansas City car detailing package you can give me a call at 620-282-0402 or you can go online to bespokerefinement.com we have several different packages several different services that we offer for Kansas City car detailing and we would love to be able to service you and your vehicle today.