Hi,

I'm your typical 48 year-old male taking advantage of an early mid-life crisis! Actually, my lovely new wife recognizes that I had to sell my old sports car (a mint, classic '79 T/A) to help finance my divorce from The Wicked Witch of the West, so she's all about making me whole again and has told me to go pick-out a car (within reason, of course).

My budget is set for a used car, no more than $22K. Anyway, I'm not a gear-head guy, not interested in running the car on meth, nitrous systems and such, I just want a cool looking sports car that's fun to drive. I've narrowed my search down to:

a. Nissan 350Z
b. Saturn Sky
c. Chrysler Crossfire SRT

Now, again, please understand I'm not about who has the most HP or best 0-60.. I just want to make a good choice and a good investment. So, since you guys are the experts, here are a few "pre-purchase" questions about the SRT:

1. I'm 6'2" and around 240 lbs (now trying to get down to 200) - I also have a history of lower back strain/muscle problems, am I going to fit into an SRT? Will I be comfortable driving it? Is there sufficient head-room? A few years ago I bought a turbo-charged VW Beetle and people could not figure out why; the reason was simple, MORE headroom! I sold that car and then bought a Mitsubishi Eclipse GT, a car that I loved the looks of, but it was just too uncomfortable for a guy my size to get in and out of on a regular basis.

2. My biggest question and one which I have not found the answer to is: "How can a car that has a sticker price of $48000 in 2005/2006 be selling used for at or under $20K?" Why the big drop in value since this is a hand-built machine from Mercedes; I would think, if anything, it would hold its value. Can someone explain this? I don't want to buy the car only to find that it has a history of super-charger failure and it's going to cost me another $2K to get it fixed.

3. Is it expensive to maintain? I saw one guy selling his on-line and I saw his comment that he "was getting tired of having to pay $135 for oil changes.." Wow! I usually use Mobil 1 in my sports cars, but that's about as far as I go..can $135 for an oil change be right?

4. Is insurance for the car expensive? I'm with Allstate and have a totally clean record of driving for 32 years so I'm relatively low-risk.

5. The only caveat my lovely bride put on my selection was "Whatever you buy, just make sure that it's an automatic so that I can drive it too..." OK, I can live with that, but does the SRT automatic have some kind of automatic-manual shifter where I can still shift through the gears manually if I want to?

6. Since I'm looking strictly at used cars, is there anything particular to the SRT that I should be looking for? I mean, I know the basics, CarFax report, etc. what I am asking is there any specific part failure that causes an SRT owner to trade in his SRT rather than fix it?

I'd appreciate any and all replies! For what it's worth the SRT is currently my top-pick, I love that it's a German hand-made car which has so much power and good looks.

Thanks guys!!!

Chris R.