62 Ford unibody shortbed. Cost me $100. Straight six and three on the tree. Ran like a champ. If you loaded the bed with a lot of weight you could no longer open the doors to get in or out.
(Without putting too much detail out) It was a coupe with a relatively chonky engine and all around relatively comfortable ride. Bought it because I had no need for "sensible" features or fuel economy as I was single and driving relatively little.
It was a cheap old heap of course and upkeep of any car costs a small fortune. And even with no known weak points, it's still old and could break down at any time. But there was no getting away from that at my budget, so why not be comfortable and happy while it runs.
Single favourite thing? That's hard. I'll just have to go with "it's all mine". I almost miss it. At least the non rusty bits that still worked.
My first car was a 1995 Hyundai Accent my dad bought from a friend for $800. The best thing about it was it was purple. People at work and school knew it was me because I was the only person with a little purple car.
The most annoying thing about owning that car was that the door handles would freeze during the Chicagoland winter. I’d go out to warm it up before school and ever so gently try to open the door. If I tugged too hard on it, the thin piece of plastic connecting the handle to the metal bar and latch mechanism would break. I changed driver and passenger side handles maybe 7 times while having that car. For a short time I was waiting on replacement door handles for both sides to arrive and I had to crawl in through the hatchback to get into the car. Good times
79 Ford Bronco. Massive vehicle. Didn't go fast, sucked gas so it didn't go far either. But it had a 3in thick steel grate on the front so when a deer ran out one day all that happened was it's head got ripped off. Truck was fine after, had to spray out the remains. But for a new driver I felt safe since deer were all over my area.
1989 Acura Integra hatchback. Cost me $3k in 1999. It was the most expensive thing I'd ever bought at the time. It had a sunroof and flip-up lights that I thought were so cool. I loved that car. Taught my younger brother how to drive in that car. I sold it for like $300 in 2002 when I had to get rid of it because I was moving away and taking it with wasn't feasible. Buy then I'd driven it into the ground and it was leaking oil constantly. Still was an awesome car, though.
2003 (?) Volvo V40 Diesel: TBH, the car radio. Having a place of my own to play as loud I want was really nice. Second to that, the seats.
Funny, that with Volvo being known for safety and all, I had to sell this car, because from one day to another the brakes stopped working without me almost not noticing until I was on a major road (rural area and engine breaking to the rescue). Someone said, the brakes breaking was a economic crash for the car.
It looked half decent especially after all the customization I did to it but what I liked about it the most was definitely how comfortable and silent it was to drive.
Came here to post this too. 2011 two-door Hyundai accent, and I really value how small it is with two doors rather than four, easy to maneuver and park and drive in general.
It's had some issues (horrible repair job after an accident led to me driving it a while with badly leaking transmission fluid, I really think that's contributed to 90% of the problems over the years) and a few months back I tried looking into new cars and I literally could not figure out if anyone sells a car that size in the US anymore. So I'll stick with dealing with it breaking down once or twice a year.
Breaking down can be a huge headache depending on timing, but I'm not interested in buying used because I don't feel like I have enough intuition for cars to test drive something for an hour and feel confident I'm not putting $10,000 or whatever into a lateral move.
Not sure if this counts (as a car), but it was a three wheeler (Reliant Robin), gutless and rattly, all the fun of going 50 mph without breaking the speed limit.
All the engine weight was directly on the front wheel, so the back end (no weight at all) would slide out wonderfully around corners.
I had an old Rover 25 which I was surprised to hear had a more sports type engine, even for its size. Which was why it was quite responsive at 4k rpm and pretty good for handling. Got really good at driving it after some time.
I came round a corner too fast and luckily there was no car on the opposite side where I was veering into. I never messed around after that.
It was a Toyota HiAce 8 seat van with an undersized steering wheel, a non functioning Speedo or fuel gauge, a moon roof and a sun roof, and the middle bank of chairs could spin around to face the back set.