What is a good cheap car for beginners?

[abyssalvortex]

What is a good cheap car for a beginner rally driver? Something that is easy to fix, and cheap to get. If you have any that would be great, and I'm also looking for some cheap used racaro seats.

[Mirek]

From experience in our country I would say the cheapest to run and most reliable car to start with is Honda Civic VTi in class N2. The only problem is that it's old and its international homologation despite being prolonged again and again can't last forever.

[Sami]

This one isn't as straight forward question as one might assume.

I have always driven rented cheap rally cars. I started with different RWD Corolla GT´s (from mid-80's) that where group N or N+. That was only about driving. no matter what tyres, the worse the better (with good tyres the lack of power was more obvious), and other than crash repairs were unnecessary. That was a really reliable car. But then I crashed twice and it was really difficult (and cost a lot) to find parts for corolla's in Finland and I changed to BMW's.

I drove different e36 BMW 325's that were almost standard and they were unbelievably reliable cars. No major technical drama ever and even the bodyshells are really cheap.

Nowadays I drive an e36 BMW M3, and everything described above matches M3 too. The biggest cost are the tyres, with 300hp the rear tyres just run out after 3-4 stages. But still I wouldn't like to go back to 325, it is just so much more fun with a really powerful car!

BMW's are reliable, available, and most importantly for me RWD.

So I recommend e36 BMW's!

[tommeke_B]

What is a good cheap car for a beginner rally driver? Something that is easy to fix, and cheap to get. If you have any that would be great, and I'm also looking for some cheap used racaro seats.
If you want "cheap used" (to use your words) parts, like seats, helmet or overall, have a look at it to be sure it's still FIA homologated... ;) In some cases you could think you're doing a great buy while you just bought something useless... ;)

[A FONDO]

First tell us what is your approximate budget because "cheap" is a flexible term. Anyway you must not spend most of it on buying a strongest possible car, you should leave a lot of money for taking part in as most events as possible, proper tyres, a good set of spare parts for the service breaks in a rally, and to be able to quickly repair it after crashes. If while driving you are worrying that a crash will bankrupt you, you will not progress much. Look what cars other drivers in your region drive so you could get advices and borrow parts from them when urgent.