Jalopnik - A Giant Hurricane Washed Away All My Cars!

[Bob]

https://jalopnik.com/a-giant-hurricane- ... 1808936377

This is something I thought about when Irma was looking like a possible threat to Charlotte. If all 3 of our cars were destroyed and I had to start over with say a $60k budget, how would I allocate this? $60k is basically what I would expect to collect from insurance for all three cars plus $10k.

2014 Vsport Premium (this is obvious). Let's budget $28k even though there is a cheaper one out there now.

The next two are a little more interesting:

For the Elise replacement, I don't think I would buy another Elise for two main reasons: I've already owned one for 11 years and it isn't very daily driver friendly. I like the convertible part, so I am partial to that; however I could live with something less expensive and more user friendly. By user friendly, I mainly mean I could drive it with every pair of shoes I own, it would be possible to talk on the phone while driving and it has decent climate control. I would cut the budget to $15-25k to reflect the relatively low amount of use. Top candidates: 987 Boxster S, Honda S2000, ND Miata, FR-S/BRZ. Less likely choices: FD RX-7 (preferably with LSX), Integra Type R, Lancer Evo. Basically what I would want to accomplish here is have something with a manual transmission that brings a different dimension of fun than the Vsport.

For the Rondo replacement, I would probably just look for a $8-10k Mazda5. I know these are boring, but that's really what I want for a family utility vehicle. Also, they have good steering feel at least.

[kevm14]

Let me look up NADA for all of my vehicles and see what kind of millions of dollars of inventory I'm sitting on.

[kevm14]

Using clean retail.

SRX: about $12k
CTS-V: $12,700
STS: $6,675

Hilariously NADA considers the Roadmaster a classic car and doesn't even let me put in mileage. What it does say is the average value is $2,650, with a low of $1,875 (lol I paid that) and a high of $4,150.

Now for the Ram and Caprice.

Ram: $5,400. Wow. That would be something.

Caprice is average of $2,100, low of $1,125 and a high of $3,050.

I get somewhere in the $41k area when I add them up. You could almost buy a decent new car for that. One.

As for what my fleet would look like...that might take some figuring out.

[Adam]

Top candidates: 987 Boxster S, Honda S2000, ND Miata, FR-S/BRZ. Less likely choices: FD RX-7 (preferably with LSX), Integra Type R, Lancer Evo. Basically what I would want to accomplish here is have something with a manual transmission that brings a different dimension of fun than the Vsport.

I like this list.

How about the Saturn Sky Redline?

[Adam]

What percentage of NADA is a project car worth? 95%? 50%? 0%?

Also, the insurance will pay clean retail unless they can justify paying less (like no engine or something).