The last car I bought brand new I kept for 14 years before finally giving in and buying another new car. I always look at reliability well beyond the warranty period - I don’t shoot for the most reliable (they tend to be pretty boring), but buying a car that’s plagued with problems isn’t exactly my idea of fun,…

I agree with this. Unless the car will never, ever shift to the detriment of the internal mechanics of the vehicle because you refused engage the clutch and gear selector, it’s not a manual.

COTD. We were all thinking it

I feel like there aren’t many cars where you can say a 2JZ makes it less fun.

It’s not a Kei car, but a 70's International Harvester is small by todays standards (kinda), and I’ve always thought they’re pretty frekin cool. Mostly just because they’re a rare sight today.

I’m totally on board with that, until my head unit has a problem - if the screen goes, or some electronics finally fry - and I have to order a brand new “OEM” overpriced POS from a decade ago to get it working again.

So much this.
I wish they didn’t integrate “key” features for the car into the stereos so that you can’t replace them with any third party stereos either.

My love of cars started with a car that’s not “special”, but special because it was the way we got around.

I don’t know, I have an F56 currently and it’s had zero problems for the ~3 years I’ve been Daily driving with the occasional Auto-X on the base model three banger.

I agree with this in general, especially in the northeast with salt and rust, but it hardly does much for tires.

Are there actually 8 year loans for cars these days?

Definitely not the weirdest in all the comments, but my old Mk 4 jetta had the ability to turn on the high and low beams at the same time - just push the stalk forward, but don’t let it “flip” on it’s own, and you could find a middle point that it happily sat in, which enabled both high and low beams.

Thanks Jason. I just spent the better part of the last hour at work looking [see: Drooling] over what I want, only to find other things I wanted.

Excuse me while I go prematurely blow my gasket. This age of car ownership truly rocks.

A solid offroader with a 30 year old design and no real options?

Nissan 350Z. Touring roadster.
Because rear drive top down twisting road fun.

Agreed.

Up and left.

As A millenial myself, I would say that this isn’t entirely true. I understand why, but find it untrue that it’s believed those of my generation aren’t true “gear heads” willing to get their hands dirty. We just prefer that our oil leaks because we poured way too much boost into some poor little engine - but our base…

Agreed!
Had a used 2004 Tiburon which, other than rust from the previous owner, was awesome.. It wasn’t particularly powerful, but it was a great car to drive, and was utterly reliable for me anyway. Made for a relatively fun Daily. Only thing that could have made it better was rear drive, but you can’t ask for that…