10 Most Fun Cars Under $30,000

you are our choices for the most fun cars under $30,000 you're watching throttle s I'm Thomas and I'm James and this is the most common question that we get on Instagram or in YouTube comments yeah other than why does Thomas look like Jesus from the walking dead yeah okay it's def curry so what we did was compiled a list in ascending order of fun-ness of cars that we think bring the most smiles for under 30 grand us or about 35 grand Canadian let's get started we do car reviews and quite a lot of messing about so subscribe hit the belt now trust us we leave it over this list for way too long and in fact it did result in some instances where Thomas had to go outside to blow off steam so let's start with number 10 and it's a car that I always hate how good it is the Honda Civic Si yeah the Civic Si is one of those cars that reminds you that Honda is really good at engineering fun into the basics of car design the steering is great it feels light and it has just just enough power to make you crack a smile and it does help that it has a limited slip diff up front but it still lands at number 10 because even though it's good it's not that fun it's just really good number 9 the Subaru WRX that's right for just under 30 K you can get a manual bass Subaru WRX a car that does everything just okay-ish but for 2020 it's even better now because the rev hang is almost gone it still has a bit of a strange shifter in a strange clutch and it's not as old-school in feel as it's STI brother but put it on some gravel or some snow or any loose surface and it dominates the old wheel drive system does make up for a lot of the deficiencies of the car otherwise has and you can get it in a manual and you should get it in a manual because it can come into manual end of story number 8 the two-door Jeep Wrangler Sport what you think these are all gonna be sports calls what's not to love about a Jeep it's a fun little off-road or it looks cool the doors come off and even though you can't get locking diffs in the base model you do get a low-range gearbox and tons of ground clearance so you can go mass through some muddy trails trust me off-roading is fun as heck I've never felt more manly than when I'm crushing some back trails yeah just as long as you stay in the car told us we all know what happens when you don't and the sport comes in at $27,000 us why all these bass models are called sport I don't know the Cadillac CTS and even the Miata does it but we'll get to the Miata soon or not that soon who knows number seven the Fiat 500 Abarth Thomas Wayne if this one on the list because it's small its peppy that makes a good noise see that's why you like it though because it makes a fun noise and we raced it on Laguna Seca which is a track so good it would make a PT Cruiser fun to drive on that in most of the cars on this list come in at about 30 grand the Fiat 500 Abarth new comes in at 20 grand us and for that you get a badass-looking hatchback with a scorpion on it chunky little steering wheel and a hundred and sixty horsepower and you can park it anywhere also James didn't you hire in for a trip through Italy and absolutely loved it I remember the pasta number six the Golf GTI / Jetta GLI yes I am thanks for asking I don't know it's kind of cheating to put both of these in the same number but they're both reasonably fun to drive and the Jetta GLI is kind of just like the sedan version of the GTI but you get more stuff for the money yeah and both offer 228 horsepower with a DSG and if you can forgive the sound act or fake engine cabin sound specifically in the GLI a lot of pipes and engine noise are there we found that both cars have the ability to awake your primal instincts yeah we drove a GLI through Tail of the Dragon ended up being a really good time except for when James got sick I've done the dragon before and I remember it being tail of the Dramamine by the end because this road is so fun you can make yourself sick as the driver and I did the steering is precise the DSG in the automatic gearbox is on point which in this price range is unfortunately quite rare that the manual gearbox is brilliant as well yeah but even though these are some of the best all-around errs they're not the most fun which means they don't make the top 5 number 5 the manual one lt1 le Camaro there's a reason that manual rear-wheel drive cars always make it to the top five and that's no less true with the one le actually famous racecar driver Randy Pobst as yes this is a four-cylinder Camaro which will make the red-blooded meat-eating kenny loggins listening americans run in the opposite direction and then crush a Bud Light can on their forehead just to regain some manliness but it's good and that's because it's on the Alpha platform which is a seriously good chassis it underpins some of Chevy's greatest cars if it was naturally aspirated it might appear higher on this list even still but even with the two-liter four-cylinder turbo it puts out 275 horsepower and yeah it sounds a little bit poopy but the best thing about this is you can keep it under 30 grand and load on the one le package so on top of aesthetic upgrades you get bigger brakes you get better cooling and get a limited-slip rear differential performance suspension literally everything you need to actually track the car and because it hasn't got a big v8 it's light and fun that's the point of this list think go fall but as a rear-wheel drive track weapon with worse livability but under 30 grand it's really a brilliant option that most people overlook number four the BRZ / Toyota 86 okay we aren't going to spend too much time on these because they've been out for so long the people that were born when they came out can now legally drink yeah in the Solomon Islands where did you grow up told us that the drinking age was 8 and the BRZ is practically unchanged when you have a recipe that works stick with it manual rear-wheel drive stiff chassis low center of gravity amazing handling simply fun to drive at any speed and they have a rawness that the Camaro 1lt 1le can't quite match and it has a torque curve to die for no yeah no ice and that's where they get let down and they literally show it to you in the gauge cluster but I actually liked the car so much but I bought one when I first moved to Canada and it is still one of the most fun cars on sale right now and a perfect starter car for learning to drive on track on a budget number three the Nissan 370z well Z wait you could still buy this car new you can although this one's cheating a little bit because it technically costs thirty thousand and ninety dollars but I trust our audience to be able to get the price down considering this car came out when they were selling the iPhone 3G but like me 86 it just has that recipe that formula except this time you get two more cylinders so it has a bunch of power oh yes can you hear that the sound of me going to jail 332 horsepower to be exact we drove the Nismo which has some completely unnecessary upgrades but we had way more fun with it than we thought we were going to and that's because even in base trim form it has a naturally aspirated high revving v6 manual transmission hydraulic power steering a playful chassis none of that stuff is groundbreaking but thing is the car is so old now that it's become good again which is fortunate for Nissan because nothing new has come out since number two the Hyundai Veloster end yes amidst a sea of rear-wheel drive naturally aspirated cars there sits at number two a turbocharged front-wheel drive weird three-door thing because for 27 thousand six hundred dollars USD you can buy one of the most playful exciting frantic new hatchbacks on sale today the turbo for belts out a whopping 250 horsepower and if you upgrade to the Performance Package which by the way still comes in at under 30 grand you get 275 horsepower and a whole lot of pops and bags and I have exhaust box which actually aren't even they're just for show they're part of the system that keeps the turbo sport so that when you want the boost it's that it's rev-happy it's incredibly quick because of how light it is makes a bunch of noise it's quite literally a riot number one the nd me Anna now crowned by me author enthusiasts as the nd to because it got an engine upgrade in 2019 then the artist sits at the very top of honest and trust us this was a hard decision it's not the highest performer and it is the least practical but it's so small at 2,300 pounds in weight it's the one that's the most like a toy it's completely unnecessary you don't need to own one you just want to own one it's got all the good stuff manual transmission rear-wheel drive perfect weight distribution and it has a 7500 rpm redline and the roof just plops down if you didn't buy the RF and you have a street-legal go-cart with airbags it's playful as anything it slides [Music] and quite possibly has one of the best manual transmissions on the market right now it is a pleasure to shift it beyond anything else in this list when you're talking about pure fun Miata annoyingly is still and always will be the answer and I'm mad about that James did we just pick the Miata because you own one of these Thomas you owned one too oh yeah no I did as a fun card [Music] oh you're still here good thank you for watching the video drop a like if you liked it and tell us what other videos like this you'd like to see but now that I've got you here a really important question I've been trying to figure out do the two trailer park girls go round the outside look around the inside or they go around the block I can't seem to remember let me know you

Channel: Throttle House

Views: 689,320

Rating: 4.8878994 out of 5

Keywords: Honda, honda civic si, civic si, most fun cars, most fun cheap cars, Subaru WRX, Jeep Wrangler, WRX STI, Abarth 500, VW Golf, Golf GTI, Golf GLI, Camaro, 1LE, Chevrolet Camaro, Subaru BRZ, Toyota 86, Nissan 370z, Nissan, Veloster N, Hyundai, Mazda, mazda miata, MX-5, sports car, Mustang, fun cars under 30000, fun cheap car

Id: 8fQVP-S1WbI

Length: 12min 23sec (743 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 08 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/againstliam]

• 1. Mazda Miata MX-5 (ND2)
• 2. Hyundai Veloster N
• 3. Nissan 370Z
• 4. Toyota 86/Subaru BRZ
• 5. Chevy Camaro 1LT 1LE (Manual)
• 6. Golf GTI/Jetta GLI
• 7. Fiat 500 Abarth
• 8. Jeep Wrangler Sport (2 Door)
• 9. Subaru WRX
• 10. Honda Civic Si

[u/Varekai79]

A bit weird that a Canadian video is using American pricing to come up with a list of cars under $30K. I guess their views come mainly from the US.

[u/Jtbros]

Lists like this really make me want to get a Miata & Gladiator combo. But then storage and insurance are still things.

[u/Wylde_223]

I fucking love Throttle House. Them Donut Media, and The Straight Pipes are some of my favorite youtube channels

[u/pulsificationII]

/4. Subaru BRZ

Can confirm, very fun indeed. It was this or the Miata for me and I could not be happier with my choice.

[u/angrytroll123]

Of all the car segments there are, I find cheap fun to be the most interesting. It's easy to have an excellent car if you spend the money for one. I feel like cars in this segment have more personality.

[u/ParaFalcon]

I knew it’d be top 3, shit is just as fun as the day I bought it

[u/setuid_w00t]

They set the price limit at $USD 30k or $CAD 35k. In Canada, the mx-5 GS is $35,070, but that trim level doesn't get the limited slip differential. For that you have to buy the GS-P at $CAD 39,070. I wonder if the base mx-5 really belongs at #1.

[u/Senray]

Veloster R Spec is a lot of fun too