Actually, the cars suggested so far aren't top of the line race chassis. I'm pretty impressed with whats been said. Normally you'd see a few people telling him to buy the newest hot rod. The only thing I might add is to also consider older, used chassis that were "top of the line" in their day. For VTA and RCGT I run the Losi XXX-S. They can be bought pretty inexpensively. The TC4, Schumacher MI3 and 3.5,Tamiya 415 and Evo 4or 5......all examples of excellent cars that could be found for less than you could buy any reasonable new chassis.
But JKL1031 is right.....if it's just a basher car then buy cheap !!