Apparently a whole lot of people missed my followup post about my wife not wanting a bolt action, and the original post about her not being able to handle the recoil of a .30-06, Mosin, or 12 gauge.
They also seem to have missed the part of the original post about it being necessary to penetrate soft body armor (in an event like the Tyler Courthouse Shooting), and the rifle being cheaper than $1000.
If you remove those suggestions, I'm left with what I started with: an SKS or lever action .30-30, possibly a WASR-2 AK.
Although I've had an ak47 and sks and think they are great guns, for a trunk gun I would suggest an american made rifle or FAL. Around here if you were stopped with and AK or SKS in the car I would expect a couple of hours of questioning with our homicide bureau and would not expect my gun back for a couple of weeks until balistic test were done.
As you may have guessed, in Miami the drive by weapon of choice is the AK 47 or SKS.
If I needed a trunk gun (as a civilian) it would be a lever, pump or bolt action rifle, as a LEO it would be an AR15 or MINI 14.
Right or wrong when the ***** goes bad the goofball in the street with an AK or SKS is probably going to be nothing more than a target for the arriving police units.
If you remove those suggestions, I'm left with what I started with: an SKS or lever action .30-30, possibly a WASR-2 AK.
I was hoping for more options to present themselves, but I guess there's only so many choices to begin with, and then my wife's picky, but hey, she wants to buy a gun, so who am I to say no?