Hottest Cars to Drive to College
There are many hot cars in the world, and this list could be one of just the most beautiful super cars, but how many people going to University could afford something like the Bugatti Veyron which would run most people around one and a half million dollars?
So what cars should college students look at if they want to drive in something cooler than the traditional highly tuned Honda Civic? What cars should college students buy if they have more money than the average car consumer? These aren’t the three hundred dollar cars that most high school students buy, but if you can afford them, you will definitely be envied by others.
I have tried to compile a list that includes a variety of car manufacturers from around the world so that we don’t get too many exotics jamming up the list and I didn’t include the year with most of the vehicles as everyone has a preference, and a used model of some of these vehicles is less expensive and will still provoke the same response.
Here are my choices for the fifteen hottest cars to drive to school:
1.) Audi RS4
While not in your face like many of the vehicles here, the Audi RS4 is a beautiful car with style, and presence. With a retail price of nearly $70,000, the RS4 isn’t the least expensive car in the Audi family, but it is one of the nicest.
I particularly like the design styling of the 2009 Audi RS4, but can’t find many details on it. The 2007 and 2008 models are also a highly recommended and will set you back a little less in terms of cost, for many of the same features, and specifications.
The Audi RS4 comes with an eight cylinder engine with 420 horsepower. It is an all wheel drive vehicle with a 13 mpg city rating and a 20 mpg highway fuel economy, for those that like to keep track. It does 0-60 mph in 4.8 seconds.
Jeremy Clarkson from Top Gear says in his review on Times Online, “You know, just from looking at it, that it’s going to be very, very fast. And it is. It was designed to be a rival for the old BMW M3, but if anything they overshot.”
2.) Ford Mustang
Classic American muscle couldn’t be represented without the classic Ford Mustang. Even the base model is an interesting car, let alone all of its siblings like the Shelby, Bullitt, GT and others.
Coming in at a price range between $20,000 and $35,000 for the base version the Ford Mustang is relatively affordable.
Shipping standard with a V6 engine, the Mustang comes with around 210 horsepower which will only eat up around 16 miles per gallon in the city, and 24 miles per gallon while driving on the highway.
The interior is said to feel cheap, but if you drive it correctly, no one will be paying attention to the interior of your car. Ford releases many different models under the Mustang name, and we suggest going with the GT and it’s V8 engine if you want the full mustang experience without the higher prices of some of the other models, but on the outside, for the most part, it doesn’t matter which one you own, as it is sure to turn some heads.
Edmunds, in their review of the 2008 Ford Mustang, says, “More than just a show pony, the 2008 Ford Mustang offers enthusiasts on a budget a tempting combination of potent performance and timeless styling.”
3.) Mazda RX-8
You might be wondering why I put the Mazda RX-8 on my list, and if you look at the styling of the base model of 2008 and previous years, you might be right, but the 2009 edition of the Mazda RX-8 is beautiful to look at and still has the amazing performance of previous models.
With a suggested retail price of around $27,000, the 2009 Mazda RX-8 is very affordable.
One of the more interesting features include rear-hinged doors for the roomy back seats, much like many of the pickup trucks today.
The engine it includes is a unique rotary engine that Mazda has developed, and no other cars use. The rotary engine allows for 247 horsepower giving it a higher allowable RPM limit but still only giving a straight line zero to sixty time of seven seconds.
For those keeping track of the fuel economy, the 2009 Mazda RX-8 does 16 mpg in the city and 22 mpg on the highways, which is considered generous, and is also worse than the Ford Mustang.
All Auto Reviews has a good quote on the engine to give you a better idea of what it is like to drive a Mazda RX-8 saying, “Since there is no reciprocating vibration in a Wankel engine, the engine runs very smoothly, even turbine-like… Once you have driven a Wankel, you don’t want to go back to the reciprocating piston engine.”
Read more
Free College Softwares
There is one thing college students don’t need when it comes to their software: another expense. With books, tuition and the million other expenses that come with going to college, the last thing you should have to pay for is some decent software.
Thankfully, there are many great free options to load up your computer with. While these might not be everyone’s personal preferences for the best free software for College students, I think that most people will find everything on this list useful, and being that the price is “free”, there is high value in all of this software.
OpenOffice.org
For those of you that can’t afford to pay the premium price in purchasing Microsoft Office, even with a generous student discount, you’ll want to look at OpenOffice.org. It is a free piece of software that works on any operating system, and includes access to software to write documents, create spreadsheets, presentations, and more.
For those of you using NeoOffice or other productivity software on your Apple Mac computers, you’ll now be happy to know that OpenOffice.org runs natively on Mac OS X, meaning that there is no need to load that strange X11 emulation software thus increasing the usability and usefulness of OpenOffice.org.
It also reads and writes Microsoft Office formats, meaning it is perfect for opening documents from school, or sending essays to your professors.
Download at OpenOffice.org.
GIMP
Don’t want to buy or use Photoshop illegally? No problem. GIMP is freely distributed image manipulation software that runs on all major operating systems (though with Macs you’ll need to install X11 emulation). GIMP is great for creating graphics and logos, photo tweaking, creating animated GIFs, etc.
While installing and running GIMP on Windows and Mac OSX are not as straightforward and easy as you may be used to, there are plenty of online tutorials that should make the process painless.
Download at GIMP.
Adium & Pidgin
If you have friends on MSN, Yahoo, AIM, and Google, you’ll want to find one piece of software to easily manage your conversations with all of them, and Adium and Pidgin will allow you to do that.
Both pieces of software allow you to combine your collection of friends and family into one long list, making it easy to communicate. Of course, you’ll be missing certain features that native applications have, like Google Talk’s video chat, but being able to be organized, and using fast and light pieces of software are worth any trade offs.
The choice on which multi-client instant messaging software to use is yours, and it really comes down to personal needs and tastes as well as which operating system you use. Adium is only for Mac OS X, while Pidgin works on nearly all operating systems. If you have a Mac though, both are free so give them both a try and stick with your favorite.
Octave
Think Matlab is way overpriced? So do we. The good news is that there is a solid free replacement called Octave. Almost everything that can be done in Matlab can be done in Octave. Plus, if you used to have to go to a special computer lab to do your Matlab work, now you can do it on your own computer.
Just like Matlab, Octave is an ultra high-level programming language that is used to solve mathematical problems and plot their solutions. The nice thing about Octave is that it is modular and can easily be expanded to perform additional functions.
Download at GNU Octave.
Eclipse
For those of you who are computer science majors or just taking a few computer programming courses (which is becoming more and more common, especially for science majors) the good news is that you don’t have to buy an uber expensive C++ IDE package like Visual Studio. Instead, Eclipse gives you an amazing, fully featured development platform with all the plugins you could possibly want. Plus, Eclipse runs on Windows, Mac OSX, and Linux.
Download at Eclipse.org.
iTunes
Listen to music? Want to be able to download movies, television shows, podcasts, and your favorite songs? Well, iTunes pretty much corners the market when it comes to legal downloadable media and the software is free.
For students on a budget, the myriad of video and audio podcasts available for free on nearly any topic or interest is a great way to pass the time, and iTunes has a radio section that allows you to listen to an unlimited amount of streaming music on hundreds of different stations.
Download iTunes from Apple.
Firefox
If you are still browsing the web on Internet Explorer, then you need to get with the program. There are many other web browsers out there that are better, faster, more secure and easier to use than Internet Explorer. One of the best is Firefox.
Not only is it faster but it allows for extensions. Extensions allow you to add features to your web browsing experience, from adding the weather and your e-mail count to always display on the browser, to being able to look at the code of a website easily, there are a million different things extensions can do to make Firefox even better than it is “out of the box.”
Download Mozilla Firefox.
VLC
Trying to play video formats, and having issues? Check out VLC. An amazingly lightweight piece of free software that plays nearly any video that you ask it to. It can be used to play DVD movies as well.
It also is available for nearly any operating system, making it a great choice for everyone.
Skype
If you are away from your family, or don’t want to pay crazy prices for a home phone line, take a look at Skype’s offerings. One of the highest quality voice over the Internet services available Skype has many great advantages over getting a traditional phone line in your dorm or apartment, and is easy to use.
Also, if your family and friends get Skype on their computers, you can have free chat, audio or even video conversations with your family and friends.
You can even purchase phone numbers through Skype so that people that don’t have Skype can call you. And if you buy SkypeOut credits, or service you can call regular phones from your your Skype account. Many people use this as a cheap long distance service, especially for overseas calling.
Download Skype.
Last.fm
Want another great way to listen to music, especially if you don’t know exactly which songs to buy or download, check out Last.fm.
Last.fm lets you create “stations” based on your search preferences, from things as simple as “alternative” to listing your favorite bands and having it try to find others that you may enjoy as well.
It is free, and totally worth using for parties and events where you want a wide variety of music.
Download Last.fm.
Vuze
Understand BitTorrent? Then you’ll want to get Vuze, a great way of managing torrent files in an easy to understand way. This will allow you to download movie trailers, open source software, and videos from sites like Revision3.com.
Vuze rounds out my list of the top free College software.
Download Vuze today.
