Civic sport for him then. Or a Hyundai. (new Veloster Turbo or Elantra GT Sport...they have autos and 201HP.)

Elantra GT Sport or the new Veloster Turbo. You can get them with an auto, small, zippy (201HP,) decent interiors, 10 year warranty, way under your budget.

Just get the Civic Si. It’ll go 10 years easily, be cheap to run, be good on gas, is small by modern standards, and plenty zippy and will have lots of aftermarket support. It’s also way under your budget. Since you said 2 seats was ok you could just get this in a 2-door. I can’t recommend a Miata or a BRZ/86 in an…

He said it needs to be auto, and as much as I like ignoring that advice, these don’t come in automatic. 

The VOLT is a Plug-in hybrid, the BOLT is an EV. Volt is also a little different from other plug-in hybrids because it uses a gas range extender with an electric powertrain instead of having both gas and electric power reach the wheels like in many hybrids.

It’s 100% about how companies have labeled it and what the marketing is. There is no engineering reasoning behind the categories. 

What’s “foodstamp money”. 

No it isn’t, it’s because of statistics. 

And even if it is, what if I charge the car the night before by using a gas or diesel generator?

Hahaha I have a second place from the same thing!

They’re fine.

GTI rides plenty smooth....

My grandpa is in his 90s and has an S3 and has had two GTIs.

Just get a GTI. It’s the mature hot hatch. 

I would buy a console just for 4 controllers and Crash Team Racing.

The rest of the country.

California does have high fuel costs. 

Better hardware.  Let’s get 4K support and better framerates in splitscreen games.  

Why would anyone want to do this over just going to a drift/skidpad event, paying the $50, and having fun.

My manual car has hill assist AND a physical handbrake handle. The physical brake is still essential IMO for a manual car when parallel parking on hills. I would also point out that a cable-actuated manual parking brake is a safety feature in the event of a leak in the brake hydraulic system or boiling the brakes you…