Help Us Decide On A Car

[Triggar]

Hi Guys.

As you well know, Martyr and I are shopping for a new car.

Our first researched car was a Mini Cooper S. Lovely little car, great engine, not-so-good gas mileage and not-so-much cargo space.

Then we researched the Toyota Prius. Amazing car - powerful variable transmission, awesome HUD, extremely amazing gas mileage, and the base MSRP is affordable. But good luck getting it at base MSRP. Toyota produces about a 10th of what the market demands, and so dealers mark up the price accordingly. The dealer here quoted us a base model at $26k, and a dealer in Illinios quoted us a fully-loaded one for the same. But still not affordable.

Then Martyr's parents asked us if we'd looked into Volkswagen's. Martyr's dad just sold the 1984 Corvette that he's been driving since Martyr was a wee sprout. He then bought a Volkswagen Jetta. Now, Martyr's dad is what we'd like to call a "motorhead". He knows a lot about cars and rarely ever takes them to be fixed professionally - he does all the work himself. Now, I think if the VW Jetta is good enough for my father-in-law, it's good enough for us.

So we go to the VW dealership and test-drive one. It's a fun little car to drive - great performance, stability, responsiveness, handling. Powerful little engine in there. Lots of cargo space and is right in our budget. Martyr and I talk things over and decide that the Jetta is everything we're looking for in a car (good gas mileage, cargo space, affordability, and "the coolness factor") without us having to compromise on anything like we would have to with the Cooper or the Prius.

BUT

In the name of knowing everything about any other car that might be in the running to become Our New Car, I started looking at the VW Beetle. Same deal as the Jetta - affordable, good gas mileage, cargo space, etc. But it has a little bit more "cool factor". Now, I know a lot of coffee-shop wannabe hippies who drive the Beetle, but I know just as many cool normal people who drive them too.

So, what do you think? We buy the car sometime this coming week

Beetle, or Jetta?