Many cars will take a 7'6" board - it all depends how many seats you need to use while having the boards in the cab.
Most saloons/sedans for example (which you haven't mentioned so I assumed you ruled out?) will take a 7'6" board if you a) drop the back seat down and b) drop the front passenger seat down. My current car is a 5 door mistubishi carisma saloon, and I can drop 2/3 of the rear seat down, drop the front passenger seat down (i.e. "wind" the back part of it forward as far as it will go), I fit my 7'6" board (plus my hubby's 6'8" board) in from the boot, lying across the lowered portion of the rear seat with the nose resting on the back of the front passenger seat when it's dropped down, leaving 1/3 of the back seat free for himself to sit in while I drive. My car was pretty darn cheap as I bought it second hand and costs bugger all to service and is pretty reasonable for fuel consumption and roadtax (dunno what the story is with roadtax/registration/insurance in CA, but where I'm from, the bigger the engine size, the higher the insurance and road tax payable).
An estate/stationwagon or an SUV will have more room alright, but with SUVs in particular the costs are higher - more expensive to buy, to run, and also more expensive to maintain/buy parts for. I used to have a 2 seater 4x4 (a Landrover Discovery) which had oodles of space in the rear, but it was pretty darn expensive to service it, even the tyres were very pricey. Also from an insurance/roadtax POV, it cost a lot more than my current car as the engine size is naturally going to be bigger than a hatchback/saloon/estate, given they're a much bigger vehicle (my Landrover was a 2.5 l engine as opposed to the 1.6l engine in the car I have now). Best option is to set your budget, look at what cars you like for the price, do a bit of research into running costs, then go see them all in a dealership and get out your measuring tape. Make sure to take into account the width of your board to see if it will allow you to leave up any of the rear seating/leave the front passenger seat up if you want to carry an extra buddy in the car with you.
