I too am one of the younger owners,at 19 right now. Literally every dollar I make at work gets put into this car,and then some. All my other cars were failed attempts at project cars and huge wastes of money in the end. (pair of '87 Celica GTS's,pair of 2nd gen Mazda RX7's,'98 Mystique zetec). In 3 years of driving,I'm already on my 7th car,so as you can see,a huge loss of money on all those cars,because I modified,or atleast started to,every one of those cars and 2 of them ended up at the wreckers,one I sold dirt cheap and traded the other in for the Contour.
I bought my Contour after thoroughly researching (ie: test driving a '95 SE V6 5 speed with a fresh engine,lol). The Contour is the perfect car for my needs. It was cheap,it looks good,it has 4 doors (cheaper on insurance) for practicality,a good sized trunk,lots of power,fun to drive,and a good base to mod with.
I've had my car for 3 months this week,and I have already spent just a tad over $5000 on repairs and mods if you can believe it. It was a one owner car,and completely original right from the suspension to the water pump.
But I love my car,and I really don't know what I'd buy if for some reason I needed to get a car to replace it.
