Don't get a classic car. It'll cost a ton to keep running, in money and time, it'll be rubbish and you'll die if someone bumps you in a supermarket car park.
I bought an MG midget.
£350 for insurance, 40mpg, looks cool, makes lots of noise, and is actualy fun to drive unlike a modern box.
Maintenance can be a problem if youre not spanner savy, but the only things that have gone wrong on mine are either routine bits that any car has (points(ok, these only happen in old cars but are 5 minute job to replace and cost £2/set), clutch, brake pads, bearings, etc), or went wrong through lack of use, eg it was faultless for 2 years commuting, but lots of stuff went wrong when I didnt use it for 6 months.
Wouldn't want to crash it at any speed though, there really is no protection.
It is easy to check anyway, just bung in your details and change the months driving and you can see what they do in response to it.
Indeed, and that's the easy way to find the best car. Make a database of all the cars you fancy, run them all through the comparison sites and then run one of them with a few different variations in circumstance, bingo - you've mapped the insurance landscape and can make a sensible choice. Any car will carry bikes, my old 205 regularly fitted 2 MTBs, a bunch of kitesurfing and camping kit all at once.
haven't read the whole thread here but I also just passed my test and couldn't see why it would be £4k to get insured Third Party Only. Yes, £4k! Admittedly it was on a van but all the same. And then I tried changing it to fully comp and adding a £500 voluntary excess. Insurance fell to £999. Bargain.
So my advice (and what I'm going to do) is buy the cheapest thing (under a grand) you can get away with that seems reliable enough, put a £500 excess on it and do it fully comp.
Let me know if it works...
