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I second the jkoral's suggestion for Street Survival no matter what car you buy!
I drove a V6 Charger for a few days as a rental car a while back, and was amazed at how well Daimler's influence on Mopar at the time made the thing feel European in terms of steering feel and ride. Is it a good first car for a young driver? I don't have a definitive answer about how it is going to survive a major crash, which would be my big shopping point if I had kids and was shopping for a car. Check Google for crash damage pictures, and see how many look like they could have been fatal.
My suggestion for the ultimate first car is the Swedish roll cage on wheels...a Volvo station wagon. Our local sports car club owned three of them over the years, using them for loaner cars (spec racers) in the Rallycross program. If 10+ drivers a day could take a half dozen flat-out timed runs each through a rutted farm field and not break one for over a year, there's nothing that a teen could do to damage one. Didn't James May of BBC Top Gear fame drive one across Africa to locate the source of the Nile River?
My only other suggestion is no matter what car you chose, please make the new driver rotate the tires before handing them the keys. I made my little sister rotate my tires while she had her learner's permit before taking her driving, and three weeks later she was in a car with friends and was the only one of the bunch who knew how to change their flat tire. She thought that I was being mean for making her do it, but thanked me later for teaching her how to deal with that common emergency.....
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