Which of these cars would you buy for your teenage driver?

[jberryhill]

This one:



Or this one:




If you would rather your child drive one of these than the other one, please explain why.

Also, please understand that they are the SAME car, with just some styling differences.

[Bonx]

1. The second one will handle better, is more visible, and has better lights.

So if the power is stock, I'd choose that. If it has a 600HP Twin turbo, not so much.

[jberryhill]

4. I like the way you think

[Aerows]

20. Exact same thing I thought. n/t

[Cassiopeia]

45. On dry roads in good condition you would be correct.

On crappy pothole filled roads, heavily grooved highways and bridges it will do much worse. It will also be much quicker to hydroplane in rain and be downright impossible to drive in snow or ice.

[Major Nikon]

50. I wouldn't even go that far

A new driver is almost certainly going to run into curbs, medians, potholes, etc. So you'd be looking at replacing or removing ground effect pieces and fixing or replacing those types of rims.

[Cassiopeia]

51. Yeah, just a single tire on the tuner

Costs as much as a set on the OE model. Not to mention if you blow that tuner tire, it needs a new wheel too. If the wheels are out of production that means a whole new set too.

Tuners are not cheap cars to own. Fun, but not cheap.

[notadmblnd]

55. Doesn't matter how fast it goes

They will get pulled over in it more frequently than car #1.

[tonyt53]

2. One would be challenged by others to see what it could to. The other wouldn't.

You can decide which is which in that scenario.

[jberryhill]

3. Oooh, hadn't thought of that one

[tonyt53]

5. I've helped raise two through their teenage years.

[jberryhill]

7. What sucks is...

...my kid wrecked the one on top.

[Aerows]

25. I outran the other kid running #2

and evaded the speeding ticket he got because he actually obeyed the traffic laws.

I'm so glad I managed to hit my 40's. Looking back, it's pretty amazing I made it this far.

[PoliticAverse]

6. And one will get more tickets than the other. n/t

[Kingofalldems]

8. Yep. The cops see the second one and reach for their ticket book.

[Aerows]

21. Ive been in more red light drag races

that I care to admit.

I enjoyed every one of them.

[RKP5637]

26. Yep, I loved those. Won all the time. n/t

[Aerows]

29. How in the hell

did we survive to make it here?

I won't even discuss the interstate *sustained* race.

[RKP5637]

33. LOL! It is amazing! n/t

[Aerows]

40. I *know* I hit 135 because that was

the last time I bothered to look. I just cranked up the stereo.

[RKP5637]

44. Year ago, American Motors Corp. made police cars for various models. One was the Rambler.

I had one and the guy I got it from used to race it and had put in a 3/4 cam shaft and other things. The thing was fast, ultra fast, and had an electrical shift transmission.

It always startled someone by me at a stop light. None expects a Rambler next to them to be an incognito cop car that has been modified for racing.

And, it looked ordinary to the casual observer. Looked like a Rambler family car. And then under the hood was a monster.

Way back then cops didn't have much for speed check tools. Usually caught you by tailing you. I used my rear view mirrors a lot. LOL!

[hack89]

9. You have to drive carefully when driving a cop magnet

so I vote for nr 2.

[Aerows]

24. Or just outrun their jurisdiction.

Not that ... myself in particular ... has ever done such a thing.

[Drahthaardogs]

47. Can't do that anymore

They radio ahead and one precinct picks up where the other left off. Gotta keep those for profit prisons going

[scscholar]

53. Plus, a car that looks like that will inspire bad driving...

just like having a rifle that's black and has extra-dangerous features like those bayonets will inspire violence. Same reason people that drive red cars are inspired to be criminals and much more often break the law and endanger the public by driving so fast they endanger us all. No to red cars.

[demmiblue]

10. One is more likely to be targeted by police. n/t

[Cirque du So-What]

11. I'd still choose the standard version

no matter how much I trusted my teen driver. To cops, driving the tricked-out version is like waving a red cape in front of a bull. Insurance for teen drivers costs a pretty penny already, so drawing attention that could lead to traffic fines and hiked insurance rates seems frivolous.

[TexasBushwhacker]

18. On the other hand, the teen would have to be extra careful

driving the cop magnet.

[Cirque du So-What]

22. Or not

During my own misspent youth, I had a fairly cavalier attitude while tooling about.

[Aerows]

36. I'm pretty sure that I hit the limit on gears

with my RX-7 between Baton Rouge and Lafayette.

Sweet rotary engine. Redline it, and it was *still* chomping at the bit for the 30 minutes it took for me to get between point A and point B. You have to know I was flooring it.

[Cassiopeia]

48. I had a '79 rx-7

138 was the fastest I ever took it. Started to get a little light in the steering at that point.

Loved that car. Loved it even more when I swapped out the rear for a disc brake limited slip from an 84. Then I could power through the corners.

[uppityperson]

12. We live off a dirt road with potholes, so the first makes more sense. The second would

mean he'd be getting stopped for speeding sooner though I'd rather not have police involved.

[TheCowsCameHome]

13. Neither. They'll have to buy their own.

[rjsquirrel]

14. No

The "styling differences" include major safety components. Tires, wheels, suspension, brakes are all visibly upgraded in the latter. I'm guessing under the hood too. Most likely an utterly different and turbocharged motor in the second. These two cars are drastically different machines. It's not just the paint.

If the second car is what it looks like it certainly has a performance tuned paddle shifted manual transmission. The upper one likely a timid auto slush box.

A camber like the front wheels on the second, along with what look like racing slick tires, plus a likely more powerful motor tuning at least, makes the second car much harder to drive for an inexperienced driver.

Tell u what. Try insuring each of them and get back to me. A base VW golf and a GTi Turbo are "the same car" too. Behind the wheel they're utterly different driving experiences. Slap performance mods on that GTi like the tires and wheels on this Integra and your average teenage driver will be way overmatched.

They started life as the same Acura Integra. The mods on the second make it far more dangerous for an unskilled driver or street conditions.

/car nut

[deaniac21]

15. The engine might just be

MUCH MORE POWERFUL.

[RebelOne]

16. 1st one. The souped-up one is a cop magnet.

[Agnosticsherbet]

17. The second choice would be more expensive due to the "styling choices."

Money matters in our household.

[ileus]

19. #2...attracts cops, and all the neighbors could inform you of bad driving habits.

[Cooley Hurd]

23. ouch...

My nephew lost his life in an Integra of the same era. He bought one because his Uncle Cooley had one.

Obviously not the point of your OP, but it kinda kicked me in the gut.

On edit: emotion, good or bad, is not a bad thing overall. It reminded me that I'm real, and I'm alive.

[Throd]

27. My teenage daughter is getting a 1973 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme.

[rjsquirrel]

34. Ha! I learned to drive on one of those

With a 440 big block V8. Could hit 140 in a straight line but God help you if you hit a curve too fast.

I have daughters (now young adults). No way I would let them drive such a car when they were learning to drive (which takes years, not months, to become a good driver).

Modern cars are literally an order of magnitude safer with air bags and crumple zones and alert sensors and the like. I would recommend getting a teenager something at least from the early 2000s. Any early 70s muscle car that is still running well enough to trust as a car for the kid will be worth more than a 2004 Camry or Civic anyway, and cost MUCH more to fuel and insure.

Doesn't that 73 Cutlass need lead additive for the gas?

[Dr Hobbitstein]

28. Those are the same vehicle as much as these two are

There's WAY more than just styling differences between the two. I get where you're trying to go with this, but you're not quite hitting it.

[rjsquirrel]

35. Exactly

The difference is even greater than in the two you just posted. Hell a stock 72 Charger (Am I right?) is a hella dangerous car to drive without experience!

Both are beauties though.

[Dr Hobbitstein]

43. '69, but close.

Yeah, they were all fun to drive. I'm in my mid 30s, but my teenage through early 30s years was spent driving muscle cars. I myself owned a '76 Plymouth Valiant, '79 Chevy Nova, and '89 Firebird Formula. Not to mention all the cool stuff my buddies had.

The amount of burned rubber I inhaled... Might explain a few things.

[Adsos Letter]

39. Holy mackeral!

When did they start painting F-18's orange?

That spoiler structure is amazing.

[Dr Hobbitstein]

42. Those are both 1969 Dodge Chargers.

The top one is a stock one. The bottom one is a "Daytona" model. Very few made, and they were made to circumvent NASCAR's then rules that stock cars had to be production vehicles.

Huge difference in performance. Most Chargers came stock with a 318 or 360cid motor, 2 or 4bbl carburator, 3 speed Pow-R-Glide trans, et al. The Daytonas all had beefed up Hemis, dual 4bbl carbs, not to mention upgraded suspension/brakes/performance 5 speed transmission and the airdam and spoiler system.

[HooptieWagon]

56. Wow. Much errors there.

The Charger came standard with an inline 6. Probably very few were bought that way. I've nrither seen nor heard of one. You could get a 318, but again not many were ordered like that. The 360 motor was not available until the 70s. Most Chargers were ordered with a 383. The Daytona came standard with a 440, the 426 Hemi was optional. Either motor was optional in the standard Daytona, but not very common, as they nearly doubled the cost of the car. At some point ( '70?) the 440 was available with 3 2-barrel carburetor as an option, instead of the single 4-barrel.
Although listed as standard, Ive never heard of a Charger being equipped with a manual 3-speed. Common were the 4-speed manual and 3-speed automatic called the Torqueflite. The Powerglide was a 2-speed automatic made by GM exclusively for Chevrolet. No Charger left the factory with a Powerglide.

[Dr Hobbitstein]

57. You may be correct on those details.

I was was going off the top of my head.
The Torqueflite! That's the automatic that I was thinking of! I was confusing the name with the GM, once again, off the top of my head. Haven't been real into cars in a while, so names and details start to drift.

Still, there are MAJOR differences between the Daytona and the stock Charger (not even counting the R/T and other packages). So much so that I wouldn't call them the same car.

Thanks for the recap!

[GeorgeGist]

30. The 2nd begs to be driven fast and furious.

The 1st not so much.

[RKP5637]

31. For me, pretty hard to go incognito in the 2nd one. I like to sleuth about.

Also in my drinking years, that would be an easy spot for a cop to target leaving a bar hangout.

[ohnoyoudidnt]

32. I have to wonder if one would be tempted to drive more recklessly because of the design.

It's like the car is begging the driver to show off what it can do.

There's got to be some kind of psychological/sociological force at work there.

[rjsquirrel]

38. It's not just a design difference

The race-tricked Integra will handle very differently from the stock one. Night and day like different cars entirely.

[TwilightZone]

37. Actually, they're not the same car. The top is an Integra. The bottom is an RSX.

In some markets, the RSX is an Integra in name, but these two aren't even the same series. They're several years apart, were equipped with different engines, different suspensions, etc., even before the mods were applied to the second one.

I'm being somewhat pedantic, of course, but I guess it's probably in the same spirit as many of the discussions about this topic. They're not even remotely the same car.

[bunnies]

46. Exactly.

Anyone that's modded the body like that has done a lot of work to the engine & tranny. its nearly impossible to find an older Acura or Honda that hasn't been messed with. I say this as a CRX owner. Ugh.

[Jim Beard]

41. Guess I am screwy but the first thing I thought of was the comparison in the look of the cars and

by that, how they are likely to be used.

I was thinking of the difference between a snub nose 38 and an AK-47 with high velocity hollow point bullets. Buy a gun that has all the trimmings of kill and that is how it will be used.

[Cassiopeia]

49. The first one.

If they want the second they need to work for the parts and learn how to turn those wrenches. Or learn how to work really hard to pay a shop to do the mods.

[Rex]

52. Nice artwork.

[napi21]

54. Depends on how much you want to pay for insurance.

There are all kinds of new drivers. Some seem to be "naturals". Some carefree. Some daredevils. Some hesitant. You need to decide what kind of driver your child is, and remember, driving the yellow car is waving a flag at all the cops. You';; ot get away with ANYTHING!!

[LeftyMom]

58. I would die of shame if my kid drove either one.