thanks for the comments guys.
@ lost: yeah i think theres about 2500 tris at the moment... so i'm expecting to blow my budget i think. but its just good to get one car done and then i can have a better idea of where to cut down on tris for the next one.
@ catlin: suppose it could be considered as mid poly... the way i see low poly is anything using a smooth modifier that doesn't create any more polys on your mesh. (as opposed to using something like turbosmooth which blows yours polycount up big time)
@ masakari: yip prob can get rid of some polys... wil maybe look at doing that if i start getting too close to my poly cap.