I prefer a stick but haven’t owned another one since that Tempo although DH’s Miata is a manual (according to him, an automatic Miata is not a sports car).
I taught our son how to drive a stick when he bought his first car, a 2006 Mustang that was his “project” car. He had fun impoverishing himself replacing almost everything in it. He learned how to replace a transmission, install a clutch, repair a leaking fuel line… I even helped a bit sewing a new black leather boot for the stick shift stitched in bumblebee yellow to match the car.
My first car was a terrific used Volkswagen bug…and of course it was manual. I had no idea how to drive a manual transmission car when I bought it, but my uncle (who sold it to me) said I would figure it out. So…I did.
It was not my favorite car. Heat in the summer. No heat in the winter, no defrost that worked.
My favorite car was my first car - a Toyota Celica with a stick shift.
Worst car - a Ford Explorer we bought back in 1995. It was a manual transmission also and the clutch went out with less than 25K. Three different dealerships, all giving us the run around, getting that fixed under warranty. A mariad of other issues over the time we owned it. We owned it maybe 6-7 years.
We have since owned only Toyotas and Honda/Acuras, WTE of a Jeep Wrangler that we had for 10 years. Dh just sold it two weeks ago. As a family car, we had two different Toyota Sequoias (four kids and two dogs, lots of carpooling, it was a workhorse!). Planned to keep the second one until it died, and we sorta did, but that happened way earlier than we planned when it needed a new engine at 185K miles.
My son is still driving a 2009 Acura TSX that we bought used in 2015. It has 242,000 miles on it. We’ve put a bit of money into it over the years but repairs were cheaper than buying a new car. Just needed it to last through this past summer, which it did, but he is saving up to get himself a “new to him” used car.
I now drive a mini cooper, which is fun and easy to park.
Before this one I had a Subaru, but service was bad. Before that, 2 Lexus, which had great service and food pre- covid. Before, 2 Volvos. During carpool days, 2 children sat in the rear, ‘the trunk”. Anyone else?
I gave my son a Camry , which he had for 20 years, then gave to a friend, a chaplain. That car was a gem.
That’s why I put “foreign” in quotes. Non-Ford=foreign. If you expected Ford to buy from you, you had better drive a Ford product onto the premises, even if you had to borrow it. Lesson learned.
Worst car ever owned–an Alfa Romeo Spider (they don’t make them anymore). Actually, my H bought this car on a whim (private sale) and he loved it. One time we were driving away from the mechanic’s shop and just as we got on the highway, the wheel fell off. Another time, the handle of the car fell off. The final issue: the car broke down on a trip out west (we were in Montana) and the local mechanic had no clue what to do, but he was willing to try. He called our mechanic at home who walked him through the fix by phone, which was a trick because this was in 1982. No cell phones (maybe there were but not like today). After we returned home, my H stopped using the Alfa on a regular basis. He finally sold it to a guy who was a collector of old cars.
“Back in the day”, one could save money off the purchase price of a car by buying it with a manual transmission, no A/C and sometimes no radio (I had many friends who had radios and stereos installed after-market, to save money on the purchase). Now there are so many baseline safety features on cars, I think it would be hard to find one that’s completely stripped down.
I learned to drive on a manual Honda and drove it for many years. I don’t have many occasions to drive a stick shift today, but I always enjoy it when I do - and my kids are impressed!
My husband’s first car out of college was a Volkswagen Scirocco (I think that’s the spelling) that he bought stripped down.
He lived in an apartment, the radio out of that car kept getting stolen. He finally had a radio that came out and he brought into the house. They also stole the VW medallion off the front of that car. H bought a new one and painted it red to match its original color.
He loved that car. Sold it to a kid who never transferred the title, the kid had the car towed. My husband had to talk to the city attorney to get the car out of impound. The kid paid him back and made sure he transferred the title!
The best and worst car I ever owned was a 1970 AMC Gremlin, which was also the very first car that I purchased – for $300 when I was a senior in college.
It was the worst because: (1) It was teal with big white splotches of fiberglass – I bought it off a visiting professor at our local university who was from Pennsylvania, and he put the fiberglass over places on the car body where the salt from the roads in the Pennsylvania winters ate through the car body. (2) The windshield wipers did not work, and had to be manually pushed from side to side. (3) The heater did not work. (4) The rear window had fallen out, and was replaced by a plastic window. (5) The speedometer did not work.
It was the best because: (1) It was FREEDOM!!! I drove it everywhere. (2) When I drove down the highway, other cars would literally get out of my way because if they scraped or bumped me, my car looked so bad that, who could tell? How could my car look worse than it already did? It gave me a feeling of invincibility as I drove down the road. (3) Because it was an AMC Gremlin, my friends called it “Gundabad” – from LOTR, which was a place where there were orcs/gremlins. A private joke; but they never turned down a ride in it, either.
My favorite car was a 2005 Lotus Elise. It was the first car that made driving an enjoyable experience for me, rather than simply a means of getting from point A to point B. I’ve never known another car with this type of handling and responsiveness. It also goes against the modern trend of cars increasingly having a computer drive for you and is instead manual almost everything, without even power steering. The car’s powertrain and other functionality related to driving was also reliable, without any significant issues during the time I’ve owned the car . It drives as well today as it did when I first got the car, without any issues in many years besides routine maintenance.
After such a positive experience with the Lotus, I purchased another car what I believed to the the same minimalist principles of the Lotus, but with a far more powerful engine. I won’t list the make and model for privacy, as there are few/no other owners in my region. This became my least favorite car. On paper it was superior to the Lotus in almost every way, yet it didn’t capture the same driving enjoyment for me.
Unlike the Lotus, the car also had more than its share of mechanical issues. These include replacing turbo, replacing radiator, replacing starter, replacing snapped accelerator cable twice, electrical failures, fixing burned cables, fixing oil leaks, etc. I knew this car model was designed and modified for best performance, rather than best reliability, but based on comments from other owners, I didn’t expect this. Fixing the issues was also awkward – both because of the rarity of the make and because of awkward locations of components. The car was designed for performance, not for easily swapping out parts.
One bright spot is how well the car held value because of the rarity. At the time I sold the car it couldn’t be driven due to a broken clutch. It also had other issues including wrong color smoke coming out of engine prior to warming up, damage to door/chassis (the issue buyer was most concerned about), electrical failure(s), etc. Nevertheless, it sold for a similar price when several years old and undrivable to my original purchase price when near new, with clean inspection. The new buyer fixed everything and still occasionally sends me videos/pictures of it. I get the impression that he was happy with the car and purchase. I suppose it was the right car for him, even though it wasn’t for me.
In 2017 we bought a new Honda CRV. On the day that the car was 30 days old we were rear ended on I95. We had come to a stop, the F150 truck behind us was, the police estimated, going 50MPH when he hit us. Our brand new car was totaled (the “cow catcher” - I don’t know what you call those bars on the front - really really did a number on the back of the car), but we were ok. One of my kids ended up with what we suspect was a mild concussion (he was disoriented and throwing up on the side of the road after we got out, but it went away after 15-20 minutes) and I had some pretty spectacular bruising from the seatbelt, but all told, we were fine. We only had that car for a month, but I still think of it as the best, because I’m still shocked we walked away.
Still driving stick, even though it often means I need to wait for a specific worker to get back from break at the car wash!
Worst: VW Rabbit, which I got because my father thought the Spider would be too unreliable
Best: Probably the mid 80s Honda Civic that I drove into the ground. I’ve had Civics since but haven’t like the design as much, although I do enjoy the reliability.
It is hard for me to have an apples to apples comparison because I only bought my first ever brand new car in 2022. Prior to that, I’ve only driven used and some of them were well-used by the time they came my way, so it is hard to judge a 2006 honda civic with 250k miles against a brand new car of any type. Kudos to the honda for the longevity, though. That said:
My favorite was a 1985 Peugeot 505, 5 speed. I loved driving that thing.
The worst was a 1987 Honda crx. In general, I’ve had good luck with Honda but this one was a lemon from the day we brought it home.
The best has probably been the current body Hyundai Elantra that I now drive (we had a 2023 that my D totaled and replaced it with a 2024. They are almost the same car). I like the way it drives, the interior feels roomy, I routinely get about 50mpg on the highway and my D24 walked away from a head-on collision when the first one was totaled. I guess time will tell how reliable it remains, but at 60,000 miles, it hasn’t needed a thing other than routine servicing.
Best car: my current 2014 Audi S4. I love driving it. Fast, handles well, supercharged V6…I’ll probably own this till the day I die. 2014 was Aud’s last making this car with this particular engine.
Best car, runner-up: 1985 Honda CRX Si, manual transmission. My first completely mine car. Only a two-seater, so it had to be sold when our second child was born. Oh, how I miss that car. Super fun to drive, the shifting was amazing, comfy.
Worst car: 1972 Toyota Corolla. It was grandpa’s car that my dad then used, then shared with my sisters. No radio. But it got us from point A to point B, so
Worst car, runner-up: my now-husband’s Camaro. Horrible manual transmission, I could barely reach the pedals. Fortunately, he sold it when he graduated and got a real job.
The S4 is a sleeper of a performance car. In a great way. Looks like a sedan, preforms like a sports car. My husband always points those out. A performance car lovers car. My bil had an S6, it was quite the car.
My first car was a Camry with a stick shift. My roommate came with me to pick up the car in San Francisco. I was trying to go up the hill and I couldn’t do it. My roommate, a medical student probably close to my height was afraid to take over too. The car behind us started honking. I looked at them with such desperation in my eyes that they actually park their car and got out to see what was going on when they heard it was a brand new car for someone that had never driven a stick before, they got in and moved it over the hill. I still remember them with such fondness.
I drove that car for years until I was eight months pregnant. That’s when I got my first Volvo.
My BFF bought a Camaro stick shift when we were just out of college. She had NO idea how to drive it. Her father drove both of us to the dealership to pick the car up. I drove it to an empty parking lot (keep in mind, I had only recently learned to drive standard shift myself) and somehow, I taught her to drive that car. To this day, we both laugh about that! Talk about the blind leading the blind.
And she says by far, that Camaro was her favorite car.
