I feel like the Aveo should be exempt since it is peak "Slow car fast" sort of fun. Skinny tires, no weight, front wheel drive. It's only as boring as the driver behind the wheel.

:D

I feel like it has to be the Gen. 1 Aveo, especially in sedan form. I get it - cheap, small cars are an easy target. They’re budget-minded, so you’d expect them to be underpowered with limited design appeal.

Nissan Pathfinder, especially prior generation.

The Chevy Malibu. Look at it.

Seventh gen Mazda Protege. Anemic, bland, forgettable. We had one for about 10 years and I forget everyday we did.

Dodge Aries K (1981-1989) — Lee Iacocca’s hail mary.

Toyota Highlander

90s Kia Sephia. Shitbox that would never run right. Had 3 mice on a wheel in horsepower. The interior was nothing to write home about. Forgettable and boring.

Ford Tempo. Most of you probably never drove one let alone heard of one. But they were the Jan Brady of Ford’s lineup. You either got an Escort (really basic car) or you got the family car, the Taurus. The Tempo filled a small niche.

I like this argument. And as far as halo cars go, Mazda would be getting off cheap to keep theirs around.

Well yeah, but I meant the current iteration.

And furthermore, it’s not like the CVT is a flawed concept, it’s just that Nissan makes the absolute worst ones on the market.

I have a manual Juke. It’s quick enough, drop the seats and it can carry a ton of stuff, leave the seats up and a 6-foot adult (my son) can fit comfortably in the front or back seat… I mean, it’s a “crossover” in the sense that it’s a tall car, but it’s still a car. It handles like a go kart, and when the boost comes…

bring back the pop ups! if pickups can have 6' tall hoods, miatas should have pop-ups!

I’m probably an outlier on this one, but I absolutely loved the Nissan Juke, aggressive style with decent power for a small car, and even had a manual option available. They discontinued it by the time I decided I needed a car again because 10 years of public transportation got old, so I didn’t get one. And it’s Kicks…

Maybe the last two will help, but  I don’t think the development costs of selling dozens of us manual cars is going to help them at all.

Exactly...if Nissan and their dealers didn’t use that buyer pool to peddle mediocre products with predatory practicecs they could carve out a market.

Nissan could possibly turn things around:

I don’t think that there’s anything inherently wrong with the concept of offering some inexpensive cars and extending credit to people who might not otherwise be able to purchase a car. In fact, I think it’s a great idea.