Jeeez I can't remember I think the sj was around 8-900 when I first put it on the road, was actually my first car i had after passing my test and wasn't standard, I was too busy riding my BMX to be bothered about passing my test when I was 17
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I learnt to drive and had a 1.3 mk3 escort van when I was 17 though and I think the insurance was about £600-700 on a provisional license.
Insurance is stupid for new drivers, however I think it's also caused this whole stupid 'slamming' craze, they can't afford to drive cars that are fun and reasonably quick so they get a slow car and then to try and make it look 'cool' end up slamming it so much it's unsafe! One of the younger bmxers I know has a polo where the subframe is actually 1" off the floor and he's had to remove the arb because of it and he still wants it lower
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that's not so bad but the best bit is one of his fucking brain dead idiot mates has actually removed the springs on his yaris completely! I made my opinion very clear about that
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I'd rather them be able to drive fast cars and learn a lesson by crashing than bodge something that ends up lethal at anything above 20mph.