This article is full of truth. I'm (slowly) restoring a 40 year old car by myself while also building a career. I've driven that car maybe 10 miles since I bought it 5 years ago, and not for lack of work, time, or money. And when I make that hoopty fully drivable on some mythical future date . . . well, it'll still be an old car. Gobs of fun and head-turning coolness, all waiting to break down.

Bless my daily driver for being a 2005 model. Fun and nostalgia feel great, but they ain't worth much on the side of the road.

An ex-girlfriend of mine had an Echo exactly like in the picture, with a manual trans. I drove it countless times, and it is without dispute the worst car I have ever driven. (Sebring rental is the penultimate.)

The clutch pedal felt like it was mounted on a spring. The gear selector was like stirring bread pudding with a three-foot spoon. The steering wheel felt tacked-on, probably because when you looked through it all you saw was a sloping dashboard thanks to the podlike center cluster. (That damn pod, always making you crane your neck to confirm that, yes, you are going 5 under the limit.) It bobbed back and forth under acceleration or braking. It was surprisingly spacious inside, but that only added to the "plastic deathtrap" character it exuded vis-a-vis safety. You could chirp the tires no problem because that lawnmower engine didn't put any weight on the front wheels.

But that marshmallow monstrosity ran like a watch. It got 40+ MPG without effort, and highway mileage could make a Prius green with envy. She sold it one summer when gas prices were up and the little fucker moved overnight for more scratch than any used car of such heinous virtue should sell.

That Toyota Echo was a constant reminder that driving is indeed an experience, and you choose whether the experience will be interesting or soul-sucking.

That's not wrong at all. But I'd have trouble choosing between the 510 and the M-Coupe next to it.

Let's get a Hayabusa for that 2002 in the background!

I had someone steal the lower lip of my E30's front spoiler. Just yanked it right off and took it while the car was in a parking garage for a few hours.

All I know is I seriously dislike leather seats. Hot, sweaty, and sticky in the summer. Bitterly cold in the winter. And you slide all over the place in them.

Cloth seats forever. Even if you can never get all the dog hair out of them.

My '05 WRX has pretty decent seats. I get a little tired on the track, so they could use some more bolstering, and they start to feel kinda hard after 5 or 6 straight highway hours. But for 95% of my driving, they're really nice.

Second on the Porsche.

Boxter for me though. Don't like the shape. And that single center exhaust pipe just looks like a gaping asshole staring at me goatse style.

I failed.

It's summer in South Carolina, so it's blazing hot and thickly humid. I'm 15, and nervous as hell, just sitting there in the lot, waiting. Out of nowhere, a big DMV woman opens the passenger door and wedges herself into my red Toyota Tercel wagon, her entrance lubricated by her own sweat. First words out of her mouth: "This car got AC?" Uh, yeah [voice cracks]. "Well turn it on and turn it on high!"

That 2WD Tercel had so little power to begin with, and between the AC sucking away HP and the slippy clutch, the thing could barely get out of its own way. I knew it, and got even more nervous. So I'm doing my thing, looking over my shoulder. But along the way I stalled twice. Instant failure. And she let me know right away. I was so sullen after that, I completely lost concentration and blew through a red light turning left through a 4-way intersection of two one-way roads. Double fail.

When I re-took the test, I got the same worker, and she remembered me. I rocked it that time.