Have you considered looking at vehicles a couple years old with low mileage and still under some warranty?
You would probably drop the costs considerably. Most new cars drop in in value significantly after you drive them off the lot, imho, fwiw, no offense, etc, etc. Although, this will inevitably open up a bigger can of worms. ha!
I have also been looking at used cars too (on the internet.) Here's what I've been running into. Used trucks are almost out of the question. They are very expensive and also have allot of mileage. For used cars, it's common to find a 2013 - 2014 with 30,000k to 60,000k and let's say costing $14,000 and up. My wife wants an automatic and air. Basic new Soul with a 10 year 100,000 warrant cost $17,000. So, do I buy a nice used Honda Accord, or pay $3,000 more for a basic new car that hopefully the dealer will repair for the next 10 years. A car with 30k has a risk of some thing being wrong with it, may need new tires, and brakes. Now if I had an old man that lived next to me selling a 3 year old Buick with 12k miles for $13,000 - $14,000 I'd jump on it. It's just very hard for me to decide. Also, I drove 1,000 miles last year on my truck, and my wife drove about 1,000 on her car. A used car with 36k miles represents 18 years of ownership to us. Kinda weird, huh.. 
Trucks are expensive everywhere. I see old beaters around with $5000 in the window all the time. If it were a car, they'd be lucky to get $500. A good resource for used vehicles is AutoTrader.com. You can filter by many things and get a sense of what's available for a certain price... dealer and private. The new car rebates do make you think, but personally, I think the better deal is in the car a couple years old. Plus, you have more feedback on an older car. The same car made in different years can have different pros and cons.
Years ago it was just standard knowledge that a Chevy 283, 327, Ford 289, 302, Plymounth 318 were good engines, but you don't hear that information much any more. Again, let's use the Kia 2.0L engine.
That "standard knowledge" was mostly bullshit. The Chevy 283 and 327, and every other small-block GM engine up to 1992, are fundamentally the same engine, the difference being the length of the rods, the diameter of the pistons, and the dimensions of the valves. No matter how much "car guys" like to yack about the various displacements of the '60s, GM got it "right" when they got to the 350, and from 1970 to 1992, that was GM's small-block. In 1992 they tweaked it, but even so it is still essentially the engine Ed Cole designed in 1952.
Ditto for the Fords. The 289 and 302 were the same engine, on up to 351 CID. Ford Windsor. The "Cleveland" series was supposed to replace the Windsor, but it didn't. So, from 1962 until 1996, regardless of the various displacements, the engine is fundamentally the same.
Of course, the automakers didn't really want you to pay attention to that, nor do the supercilious hot-rod guys. They want you to believe there's voodoo and they've got it.
Modern cars are the same way. Ford sells two V8's - the 4.6L and the 5.4L. Same block - the Ford Modular. GM calls theirs "Generation IV" or "Vortec" or whatever other nonsensical names they want to apply, but it's the same fundamental engine.
Best engines I ever had were the rotary's in my RX-7s and RX-8.
I had an RX7 back in the day, wonderful car, great engine. Fun as hell to drive.
I had a 1969 Camaro Z-28 with 4 on the flow back in that day and that mother fooker would wankle.
Indeed. And that was a great car. The light weight amply made up for the congested breathing of the 302.
But we'd have taken you with that 5.0 Jag. ;-)
LMFAO
...cause we'd have been 400 pounds lighter, and we were fuel-injected. 
But I had Tourque, Dyno at over 400hp, cowl injection and a Holly 850 CFM which would pump more gas in a second than your commie fuel injection would spray all day, and I am an American.
And I could sure enough burn some rubber off them old wide ovals.
You didn't get 400 ft-lbs out of a Z-28 with a 302, even with a Holley. So either you had a COPO with a 427, or you're blowing smoke. ;-)
This space for rent.
No where does it say 400 ft lbs, holly was standard equip but it had a few enhancements. Low end torque was more in the 300 range, no big block torque for sure but it had a 411 gear which helped the bottom end a bit.
I typo'd the ft-lbs and corrected it, sorry. But at 302 CID (301.6, actually), you're not gonna get 400 hp or 300 ft-lbs of torque. You'd have to punch the engine out to do it. At the very least you'd need serious head work and a blower. That engine stock couldn't breathe well enough to produce those numbers, and your 850 CFM Holley would have been dumping wasted fuel into the engine. So did you have the engine punched out and stroked?
The 427 would get you 425 hp, and 460 ft-lbs out of the box, but that was a corporate special order and those things are rarer than Caitlynn Jenner's ovaries.
Wanna bet, You ever had one? Not sure where you are getting your breathing info but never an issue then, also available with factory optional duwal 600 CFM's and neither had any trouble using all they were fed. Mostly Just some Pistons, with manifold and valve work on mine.
The Z-28 was advertised at 290HP@4200rpm. Actual peak output was somewhere around 310HP@6200 rpm, give or take ten horse depending on who you listen to and what the weather was like the day they dyno'd it. That's with the stock 800cfm Holey. The 302 had a 4.00 inch bore. If you ran the dual 600cfm Holleys on the high-rise manifold, and had the heads ported and polished, changed the springs, changed the lifters, you could get 400HP. Without the porting, polishing, and valve work, you can't get enough air through the stock heads to get those numbers, even with the cowl induction. Putting an 850cfm carb on shoots more fuel, but without more air you're just going to spit unburned gasoline out the tail pipe.
But you said pistons, so I'm betting you had it bored out some, and maybe increased the stroke length. That and the porting and polishing could get the 400/300 numbers.
I'm not trying to pick a fight, just talking cars. No, I didn't own a '69 z-28. My uncle had a 68 SS 396 when I was a kid, and that's what made me a Camaro fan. In high school I was too poverty-stricken to build hot rods. But I was good at math, and the guys with the cars found out that if I gave them their numbers, they won the street races. My ultimate achievement was when a friend of mine with a beautiful little 67 Mustang Coupe with a 302 built his engine to my specs and beat the hell out of almost everybody because everybody else was bolting on "power" and was overcarbureted, over-cammed, and drowning their engines.
The only guy he didn't beat was a fellow math-geek friend of mine who was even better at math than I, and his dad got him a Challenger with the 440 six-pack. And that kid figured out how to tune those carbs.
