Minimum liability means the state’s minimum requirement for insurance coverage.

Slihgtly Less Short Answer: Mustang or BMW M3, depending on your budget(BMW is more) and how many rednecks are around(they’d hassle you less in the Mustang)

Also, I’ll make it easy and strongly recommend you don’t consider anything else. Read on for more… lots more…

Ultra-Long Answer:
You’re 14, you can afford to get a car you consider great, and you know the risks/pitfalls/etc/etc.
First of all, I don’t recommend getting 2 cars. It’s a pain. I am 32 with plenty of cash, and I only have one. You’re very lucky to have $ 1200+/mo income at 14, and extra lucky to have parents willing to buy you this so you can save for college. So…

Let’s see your options:
1999 pontiac trans-am with a ws6 package, t tops,
99 camaro SS t tops/conv,
2010 cobalt
2001 mustang
2000 pontiac GTO
1999 audi TT
1998 buick century limited
1999 buick lesabre? idk spelling
1999 chevy S10
2001 chevy windowless
1999 BMW M3
audi A8

First of all, you probably want something from after 2000. Otherwise, maintenance and repairs can be a real pain.

Let’s narrow it down to:

Cobalt, Mustang, GTO, BMW M3. These are the best of the bunch. You know, as cars for a driver who isn’t a boring old person.
Pick-up trucks are surprisingly UNSAFE due to being unwieldly and having blindspots. More importantly, they are boring and a pain. Vans are just pick-up trucks with caps, effectively.

Cobalt is the safest bet, but also the most boring car.
The GTO is the next safest, but also the next most boring. It has gobs of horsepower. If you want handling, however, stay away.

Now things get interesting: a Mustang or a BMW M3. That is a very tough call.

I could say… the Mustang is more car for the money, but less car than the BMW M3, which is a lot more money, but less car for the money, but the better car. But that doesn’t help you out much, does it? You want someone to just pick you a car already.

I will list some attributes, say which car does the best in each, and then you can decide or go with the short answer:
1) Acceleration: Mustang, hands-down
2) Handling: BMW, hands-down
3) Cost: Mustang costs less overall, no comparison
4) Value: Mustang again(somewhat subjective)
5) Space: BMW M3(if it’s a sedan)… and maybe even if it’s a coupe. Mustangs are smaller, I think.
6) Safety: tie
7) Refinement: BMW image: BMW(unless you live in… umm… shall we say, the heartlands? Midwest? Surrounded by rednecks? LOL)
9) Over-all driving experience: BMW
10) Passenger experience: BMW
11) Gas Mileage: Probably the BMW here too
12) You’ll probably want to keep the BMW longer, unless expenses get to you
13) Insurance: tie(but who cares)

Really, I think the best thing you can think of to decide is which car you’d want to drive until you were 30, and whether or not you are getting a car you want to drive at 30. IF everything else is the same, get the BMW if you want to still have it when you’re 30, and get the Mustang if you plan on replacing it at or shortly after college graduation.
Since I would never buy a car planning to get rid of it, my ultra-short answer is the BMW M3. By the tiniest hair’s width.

And I think my answer is longer than your question.

No, he’s not crazy. He’s economically stuck, and he’s making really hard & painful choices because he’s in a rotten job market.

Whether his choices are “right” or “wrong,” I can’t say.

But what’s really crazy are our economic system and our society at this point in time. Thanks to things over which he has no control, this guy feels that he has to sacrifice his family life in order to avoid losing his health insurance, at a time when his wife is at risk of developing cancer.

He’s also sacrificing his family life — and running a certain amount of risk of a car accident on the highways — thanks to an economic development that this guy did not create: namely, GM’s shutting down of the auto factory in his community, so that he has to commute to Kansas in hopes of keeping his GM job.

Karl Marx was wrong about some things, but he was basically right about the bad situation that working people like this guy often get trapped into, under “free market” capitalism.

If you own your own factory or farm and the market conditions are right, you can make a lot of money under capitalism, and you can enjoy some wonderful freedoms, and you might produce some great products, too.

But if you don’t own your own business or control your own job, you’re what Marx would call an “oppressed proletarian.” Even if they pay you good wages, you’re still basically a wage slave who has to dance to the tune set by your employer. During a capitalist business recession like the one we have now, of course, you really have to do whatever is necessary to please your employer, because jobs are scarce and you can’t afford to lose the job you have.

That can lead you to “crazy” behavior, like this man’s commute.

Crazy? No, the media love sensationalizing.

That’s my husband’s commute here in Los Angeles, and it’s not unusual. Since the guy in the story isn’t sitting in traffic on the 405, his commute is probably more pleasant than my husband’s. The scenery (grazing deer, etc.) sounds nicer, too.

yes, it isn’t ideal – but neither is this nation, nor this current state of the economy.