New Car 13k Budget...

[sawatsky]

Stay away from the MS3, they have issues.

What issues?

[rice4life]

2004 gto. Bone stock it's a killer car. My brothers was bought for 12k back in the spring. Bc coilovers can be had for $1000. So there you have 13k. Faster than 90% of cars. Hard to kill LS1 (Chevy 350). Amazing road trip car. Comfortable DD. the only downside is fuel economy, but the manual cars do get 25+ mpg highway.

This...

Got to drive a 6.0, fastest car I've ever driven.

[mike-81-240d]

2004 gto. Bone stock it's a killer car. My brothers was bought for 12k back in the spring. Bc coilovers can be had for $1000. So there you have 13k. Faster than 90% of cars. Hard to kill LS1 (Chevy 350). Amazing road trip car. Comfortable DD. the only downside is fuel economy, but the manual cars do get 25+ mpg highway.

This is solid advice. The 6.0 is this one to get though...

The 6.0 even scooted my family's old Sierra Denali along at a fast pace.

[GTOguy]

I'd agree the 6.0 is a lot faster. I drove a 6.0 6 speed car after I had started to mod mine and if it wasn't for tearing my car down I'd definitely have traded mine in. The only thing with the 6.0 is the cars are consistently 1-3k more expensive