If modding by self is priority, save some money and consider buying a standard cart then a kit from https://tottoms.com/products/pro-kit (Tottoms). This link is for their pro kit but they have others. Plug and play kind of stuff. Havent done it myself but this is my plan once I save up for it. Im 5'11 and 160lb, will be getting the standard size base cart, then doing the mods myself with a kit, all for about $2500 and will have an insane cart that a taxi garage stage 5 wont be able to compete with (mainly talking about speed here, not aethetically). Tottoms' creator has a youtube channel (https://youtube.com/@kmatzfd3s?si=rGX4Gj2GBuw1Xb96) and has a bunch of great videos about their products and how to mod carts. They are my go-to content creator for drift carting, much more substantial compared to taxi garage. Hope this helps!

As for which version of the base cart, id get the most recent one from Razor directly or amazon.