I bought a 4dr 2007 gti with the autobahn and dsg as a DD in February. It is in your price range and gets great gas mileage. It does take premium and synthetic oils but it is fun and still allows me to mod the evo.

The hardest part is keeping the gti stock. I lowered it and tinted the windows and want to stop there.

 

now everyone has me thinking haha, which exactly what i wanted though, as for the 10-17 ive been thinking, i can probably dip in to the mid 20s if i really believe i will enjoy it....as for the truck sounds like a good idea ill look into it, but i really think i would like a car wiht a nice powerplant and a manual gearbox, but i will have test drive and test drive some more lol....the evo will still be streetable, but it will be a weekend/track queen

 

fbody with an ls1 platform, very affordable, beast of a tranny, cheap on maintenance and extremely reliable. just my .02

 

Cts-v...Or a c5 vette. Hell you can even pick a c6 up these days for 20-25k. And get 30 mpg on the highway lol.

 

05 subaru forester xt!

 

A 2003 and up amg e55 would be a BA daily as well...But it would be hard to find one under 20k with less than 60k or so miles. And I'm unsure of how reliable they are and I can't imagine amg parts being cheap or available. But they'll run 11's with pulleys, cai, tune.

 

IS300. I'm biased but after 250k of hard driving it still drives like the day we got it (and we got it with 40k on the clock).

 

Go with the CTS-V, my buddy has one and its a fun, good looking and comfortable car. He got his used for $18k with 68k miles, I think its an 04.

 

I would also go for the CTS-V. In my opinion they are a great combination of luxury and performance.

 

beamer 5 series wagon. Good looking car decent gas mileage, super comfy and get one a couple years old because you can find them like super cheap (for a beamer) with low miles.

 

I've got an '06 and it just turned 112k. Don't do much besides change the fluids and tires if I don't keep my right foot under control. I did have an air pump issue with the seats, but there is a ton of support and I ended up fixing it for about $200. Awesome cars. Mine ran 11.4 after sorting out the launch with pulleys, k&n's, s55 intake hose, an upgraded heat exchanger, pump and a flash. CAI's don't yield very much hp and good ones are crazy expensive, so I skipped it. The mods cost me about $1500.

 

G37x (I know you said G35, but if you can afford a CTS-V you can afford a G37x).

 

Id get a jeep srt 8. Where i live there is snow and its all year round plus u can turbo it or supwrcharge it