Need help choosing the best road and casual rally racing car.

[Biskut Crackers]

Hi everyone,

I'm an 18-year old boy living in Sabah, Malaysia who is looking for a car to use on the road and for some casual countryside rallying.

I'd like a 1990's car that can be used for everyday purposes but can also be used to do some rally practices at my hometown.

These are the cars I have in mind:
1) Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution (IV, V and VI)

2) Subaru Impreza WRX STI GC8 Series

3) Ford Escort RS Cosworth

4) Toyota Celica GT-Four (ST165, ST185 and ST205)

Could anyone give me information and suggestions as to which of these cars is the best for road uses and some casual rallying?

I need the car to have these specifications:

1) Good and comfortable for daily road use

2) Great for casual rallying

3) Durable enough when going on gravel or muddy roads

4) Great fuel economy

5) Easily insureable

I dont care about a car with beautiful looks because I only want to upgrade the performance of the car for rallies.

Thanks in advance and I hope you guys could help me.

[Zico]

You are only 18 and yet specify that The Evo, Impreza Turbo, Escort Cosworth or GT4 must be easily insurable?!! Get back to us once you have a few insurance quotes for each of these.

Dont expect any of these to have "great fuel economy" either, In standard levels of boost alone you will probably get an average of between 15-25mpg depending on how its driven. At high boost levels as low as 8mpg

[NaBUru38]

Hello, Biskut Crackers!

If you were in Europe, I'd suggest you an R2 or R3 car like a Clio, Punto or Fiesta. I'm not sure what kind of rally cars they run in Malaysia. Of those, I'd for for a Mitsu or Subaru N3, because there are hundreds around the world running.

[tbtstt]

I don't know how common any of your four choices are in Malaysia but, considering the same situation in the UK then the Subaru would be my first choice. I'm possibly biased because I'm a Subaru owner, but GC8 Subaru's are far more common than older Evo's (here anyway), so spares are far more common. Of course the situation may be different in Malaysia, so the above may not apply.

I would personally avoid the Escort Cossie or Celica options though: both are fantastic cars, but I know a couple of EscCos owners who seem to be permanently blighted with problems and a friend of mine recently had a serious look at buying a Celica GT4 as a weekend toy and found they have a number of technical issues, so he avoided them.

As Zico rightly points out (and unless the situation in Malaysia is very different) none of your choices will be cheap to insure. I spent a lot of years wanting an Impreza and some of the insurance quotes I received in that time were utterly obsene. Even now (at 29) my insurance isn't far off £900 for mine - at 18 you can expect to see quotes of 10 times that over here! (No, I'm not exaggerating!)

Equally - and again as Zico has pointed out - none of the above are great for fuel economy. 20 MPG would be a reasonable figure for combined driving, but that will drop to single figures when you drive enthusiastically. I think fuel is a lot cheaper over your way though, so perhaps the above consumption is less of an issue for you.