In the market for some wheels.. here is a hodgepodge of questions..

Need to do distance to get to the sweet spots, am in the great lakes region.

If you bought a car with kitesurfing as a factor, what car did you end up buying, and are you happy with it? Would you change anything..

One of my considerations is a regular (not wagon) VW Golf TDI for its stick + fuel economy + hatch feature, whats the maximum size surfboard that I can fit in that without portruding into the front cabin and preventing me from shifting gears? If would seem to me that even with a wagon, you still loose the two rear seats. Are there wagons where you can fit a surfboard inside and not lose rear seating?

Thanks in advance,

there is a 'most ultimate car for getting to the beach' thread around here somewhere

i think vans won

I'm pretty happy with my rig

4wd. decent mileage. easy to get around town with. reliable. kinda cool in a quirky way.

I looked at Sprinter Vans and Vanagons before finally deciding on the Element.

The reliability of a Honda and ease of getting a loan for a newer used car was what finally did it for me.

my best kiteboarding bud drives an AWD stickshifter element!

I use a gmc safari awd(like an astro)

Too bad they stopped making the element.

Ford Mustang GT 400 horses with a keypad. Never drop your keys in the ocean again.

when my son was born i had an excuse to get a new car, i pick it up base on price, fuel consumption and boot size

the winner was the skoda superb greenline (wagon)

permanently inside the boot, not visible from the outside:
1 skim board
1 TT with boots on
3 or 4 kites
harness, wetsuit, etc

as my missus use to say - ´you did bought a car for the family, but the kite family - the 7, the 10, the 11, the 13..."

F150 with a 6'6" foot bed. I wanted to buy a used van to use just for kiting but my 8yr old car was starting to burn oil so I just bought a new truck instead. I still need to put in neoprene seat covers and weatherproof floor mats. It's nice having a bed to keep everything in so the cab does not end up smelling. I all so installed an onboard air compressor so nice when pumping up a kite.

I used to have a VW golf and by dropping back seats and reclining front one i used to get 3 surfboards in no problem, 4 kites and the all the bits.

I exchanged it for a new VW Amarok pickup and everything now goes in the back. its a 2 litre turbo diesel which gets about 28/30 mpg, which is OK, and the inside gets to stay all clean.

lift up hard top at the back also protects from rain and wind while changing.

mike

you can use this kind of transportation-
It's very fuel efficient, fast and i'm pretty sure you can carry all of your gear.