I dunno, the Saabaru is one I always wished had come to the UK. It's a bit odd and quirky, like a proper Saab should be and later GM Saabs really weren't (think of the 9-2X as a spiritual successor to the old 96...), and it has all the benefits of that generation Impreza with none of the ugliness. Or in the UK, none…

All you guys who voted for that Renault 5 steering wheel are insane. It's like something out of TRON.

YES. In fact, even buttons alone are a bit of a nuisance, though that 911 (?) has those awesome pull switches.

I like to think that someday I'll buy a car from brand new that I love enough to keep forever, like that guy has done with his 3 million mile Volvo P1800. I reckon the Toyota GT86 has potential - fun, reasonably inexpensive to run, not too much useless tech, it's a Toyota so it'll go on forever etc.

I never knew that car existed. In return, have another loopy kei car, the Suzuki Twin.
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Here it's certainly pretty close: Rapid with 1.2 TSI 105 PS engine, £15,350. Beetle with 1.2 TSI 105 PS engine, £15,515. Octavia with the same lump, £15,990.

Not sure the CR-Z really deserves to be on this list. I found it quite fun. No ball of fire of course (though it now has 130-ish hp rather than 120-ish, doesn't it?) but here in the UK it's quick enough for twisty back roads. I mean, it's as quick as my old Miata (which I never found too slow - other opinions may…

Unless I'm horribly out of date, or just in a different country to you (I'm in the UK), I don't think the Octavia is less than the price of a base Beetle. I only say this as I was surprised to discover that the Skoda Rapid - just below the Octavia - costs only a few hundred less than the Beetle itself,…

YES. This was also my suggestion. The most boring car in the world is only as boring as the situation you put it in. Fill with friends, put some music on and head to the hills and it's no longer boring.

In that case, I'd suggest you try some of the latest autos. I love a good manual, but there's no way in the world I'd pick a poor one over some of the latest DCTs or 7/8-speed autos.

Ah, y'see that's a whole different kettle of fish. There's "characterful" bad and then there's just "tedious, can't-be-bothered" bad. Your Ranger presumably falls into the first category, as have several classics I've driven with dodgy clutches or recalcitrant gear linkages.

The last truly awful one I drove was in a Mercedes B-Class. I promise you that car is better with an auto. But then it is a Mercedes, and they've never really produced a genuinely good manual 'box.

The obvious answer here is "road trip it". Fill with friends, head off into the unknown. The car itself may not be fun but you won't notice if you have good company.

Nobody who has driven a truly bad manual would ever say that. The "driving dynamic" thing doesn't fly when you're working a mushy clutch and wobbly, disconnected-feeling stick. You get more interaction from the HVAC controls in some cars than you do from the transmission.

They should cut it into thousands of little bits and embed a piece of it in the trophy of every person who wins a race at VIR. Like a sort of wooden Victoria Cross.

60 bhp for the Super? What kind of crazy hotted-up car did you get in the U.S? 1600cc Supers were 50 bhp in the UK (or so my brochure says) and my own 1300cc '74 Super made a whopping 44 bhp brand new. I DREAM of 60 bhp.

Y'know, she may genuinely not be anti-cyclist.

On 12k a year pretty much ANY car is a "rich people toy". I've been on that sort of wage before and I could no more afford a car and stick expensive fuel in it than I could buy an electric car and potentially replace the battery every decade or so.

And Morris is no longer with us, whereas Volkswagen basically owns the entire planet.

This is all very well and admirable, but after the manual technique becomes second-nature and less scary, like any oft-repeated task, it's hard to believe the distractions won't start... well, distracting again.