[Cuog]

One important thing I'd ask is what do you want out of your first car?

Something that just gets you from point A to point B with limited fuss and $$?
I'd recommend almost any 4 cyl. car from the past ten years, my girlfriend went with an 03 dodge neon and it has filled this role for her perfectly.

Do you need something to do work?
This is why I went decided to buy a car(truck) instead of going car free. I needed to be able to pick up materials for my business so I bought an 82 Ford F100 longbed. It's horrible in the city because its about as wide as the lane(and wider than some) and fits exactly the length of a standard parking spot. Fuel economy is horrible, so I wouldn't recommend it for commuting, but there are smaller trucks with better fuel economy for a bit of a compromise on this front. However a truck has been quite a lot of help for robotics since I've driven much of the demo bot and materials around for the team during the summer.

Do you want something you can learn to work on/become mechanically competent(maybe you're a gear head). For a first car for this group I'd recommend an old air cooled VW, beetles are the cheapest and easiest to find, but there are some other body styles to go for too if you want. These will be manual transmission, very simple cars and will lack all computer controls and silly safety gizmos. They will however make you learn how cars work, and make you a better driver as you're forced to pay attention to the road.

A first car is a very personal thing and it will be hard for people to really point you in the right direction without knowing you, and to some extent your family. The "safety" of the car will make a huge impact in this area. It will have a lot to do with yours and your families views on handling risk. Personally I don't like to rely on passive systems that can get in the way of my control of the vehicle, for that reason I drive manual transmission cars, no airbags, no ABS(though I don't have much of a problem with this one, I just don't see it as particularly important), no traction control anti-roll etc. I've found that much of the worst driving of the teenage years will happen in the safest car you have access to, when it starts feeding that wonderful invincibility factor.

What is your philosophy on things? I know a lot of people don't think about this, but its something important to me. Much of American culture, and especially auto culture has gone to the idea of getting rid of something perfectly good every few years to trade up to the latest and greatest, I do exactly the opposite. I buy something that has been used, and proceed to maintain it until that's no longer viable. You'll want to take into account how long you plan to own your vehicle at purchase. If you want to keep it a long time maintenance and upgrade/repair costs are going to matter a lot more than if you plan to keep it for a couple years as you can probably afford to slack on maintenance and once the problems get bad enough just sell it.

I'm sure there's more, but I'm getting tired. My recommendation to you though is to think long and hard about what a car is to you, and if you even need one before buying. Trust me, I bought my first car when I was 12, I didn't actually need one until this year, almost a decade later, and if I didn't decide to start a business, I still wouldn't have bothered.

--Alex
79 Trans Am(restoration)
69 VW Beetle(restoration)
80 Honda Twinstar
82 Ford F100