These Are The Best Cars For Broke People

I have the actual answer, from experience. I actually, literally now drive a 2002 Toyota Echo with 160k miles and peeling paint. The Echo is genuinely ugly and too narrow. But because of that, you don’t pay the Toyota premium.

Or at least, not with money. You pay in dignity. And, maybe, some joy. But if you haven’t got money, dignity is your currency.

That said, it’s stupendously reliable, its tires are less than $100 a pop, it’s a stick (thank goodness), and it gets well over 30 mpg.

Truth be told, it does grow on you.

Does it have an armrest? Does it have cruise control? No, and no. But I can take the hundred dollar bills I save over driving my old GTI the 150 mile plus round trip to work I do every other day, and just sort of dab the tears from my eyes. Those long stretches of highway were a waste of GTI joy, anyway.

This is the right car if you’re broke. Get the real tangible benefits, and just smile and own the fact that you’re broke. It’s goofy enough looking, you pass from shame into irony. Wear it with pride, for half a million miles.