My own.

My 1990 Pontiac Sunbird has 96 horsepower and no cruise control and I’m still considering driving it the 7-or-so hours to Detroit this coming September for the Radwood show. I guess that makes me sort of a double masochist? (One for owning the car in the first place and two for driving it that far.)

We are still doing our annual trip from our home in Kentucky to a rental condo in Gulf Shores, Alabama. But we did decide to drive my car (2016 Mazda6) rather than my wife’s SUV (2019 Toyota Highlander AWD), since we can still fit everything in the 6 and it can make it to the beach on just over 1 tank of gas (it was…

1st gear:

Hey, thanks for featuring me! And my little red 3. I miss that thing. It was the perfect college car. Even used it as a moving van a couple of times during college. It was astonishing how much crap I could fit in that hatch with the seats folded down.

It’s $4.39 for 87 octane here in rural western Kentucky. My wife’s 2019 Toyota Highlander was $67.98 to fill up from not quite empty on Sunday, when it was still $4.19 for 87 and we had 10 cents off at the local Circle K. The Highlander turns the “low fuel” light on when it still has 2-3 gallons left, and the light…

The CX-50 is slated to receive Toyota hybrid tech soon-ish, if reports are to be believed. It’ll probably spread to the rest of their lineup. I’d imagine the 3 will have it here eventually as it already does in Japan.

Boring? That’s not how I’d describe mine, but I guess everyone’s opinions are different. As far as the transmission, mine was the 5-speed automatic and I never had a single issue but I did change the fluid early on.

Mazda. Bought a 2008 Mazda3 hatchback in August 2009 sort of on a whim before starting college. It was a former dealer loaner and only had 12,000 miles somehow. I kept it for almost seven years and the only issues I ever had were a brake light switch that cost $10 and a motor mount that was liquid filled and started…

2016 Mazda6 Touring - 61,000 miles.

Rented a 30,000 mile Focus hatchback when my ‘16 Mazda6 was in the body shop getting repaired from being in a fender-bender. Holy shit, that DCT was bad. I’d heard stories but I never dreamed it would be as awful as people said it was. I was wrong.

Now THAT sounds like a fun trip!

Americans don’t want them. To most people here, not a truck or SUV = tiny. We are taking my 2016 Mazda6 on a trip to Gulf Shores, Alabama to save gas this year instead of my wife’s AWD Toyota Highlander. It’ll be my wife and myself as well as my five-year-old son and my two-year-old daughter.

I never said there weren’t?

This! My employer moved me to permanent remote work at the end of 2020 and it has been a godsend as far as saving money. Wear and tear on the car is reduced as are gasoline costs and I don’t have the urge to eat at restaurants or go to the store on my lunch break since I’m not working downtown. I am beyond grateful.

If that is what you picture when you think of two young kids in a midsize car, then you have large kids.

Which is why we have the Highlander as well. My wife’s sister is only 13 and she goes places with us a lot, as does my son’s best friend who is 8. When they’re with us, we have the SUV and we use its (albeit minuscule) third row. When they’re not, we can use the car.

My wife and I have a five-year-old son and a two-year-old daughter. My wife, myself, and the two kids can easily fit in my car (2016 Mazda6). It gets 40 MPG on the highway and can make it to the Florida state line (at the panhandle) from our home in Kentucky on just over 1 tank of gas.

Not that I added a third bay garage to our new home we had built in 2020 so I could house my 60k mile all-original Pontiac Sunbird.

Facebook groups. Right after I bought it in late 2018, I needed a coolant overflow tank for my 1990 Pontiac Sunbird.