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I've always been a fan of the short tube SCT, having owned 2 x 8" and last year I upgraded to a 9.25". The 8" SCT's were stock fork mounted scopes which taught me to star hop and learn the sky (the first scope was stolen, thus I owned two). The 9.25" is a goto scope the reason being that I now know the sky and want to maximise my observing time.
BUT... I will often find myself drooling over 12"+ dobs purely for that aperture lust. And these can quite easily be converted to tracking/goto systems.
As others have said, if you can fit it in your car get the biggest you can get. An SCT is a good choice as they are short tubes but if you crave faint fuzzies then you'll need aperture and lugging a large SCT in your car can be painful.
A second hand scope to start with can be a good way to get into the hobby without spending a packet and once you have an idea of what you might want to observe and if you wish to get into astro-photography then you can easily upgrade, in fact do not be scared of the upgrade path, it is a viable solution in this hobby.
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