There's a guy in my neighborhood who has started both his teen sons out driving in the same 240D. It must have a bazillionn kid miles on it, but I see son #2 trundling down the street to school every morning.He seems to get more oomph out of that 240D than I ever thought possible--but I know that the acceleration is mostly noise and smoke...

Another option is to give the kid a big old panther body Fomoco sedan. That would be a Crown Vic, Grandma-quis, or Lincoln TC. There are tons of them around--they are cheap to buy and cheap to fix. They all have a 5 star crash rating. The wall street journal ran an article a couple of years ago about parents buying old police interceptors for their teenagers just because of the crash rating. I've had two of them ('92 and current '99)and they really are pretty bulletproof (no, not real bullets). There is a "cool factor" for some kids--but not for the BMW crowd. That's OK, I'm not sure I want my kid running with the Ralph Lauren crowd anyway. I'm old-school.I drove scotch tape and bailing wire specials for years--he can, too. Come to think of it, I may keep the '99 PI until he's 16....

Mark
Rock Hill SC
'93 300D 2.5 turbo 170K miles today!
'99 Crown Vic PI 79K
'66 Mustang restomod - definitely NOT for teens
'61 R-R Silver Cloud - wedding limo business