I’ll start myself.

My first car was a 2001 Honda Civic Hatchback. It was like 8 or so years old when I got it.

What I liked:

• The looks. It wasn’t customized, but it had stock bumper lips and skirts, which I tore off the curbs pretty soon, unfortunately
• Practicality of hatchback
• Relatively small size - helped with parking in city

What I hated:

• CVT transmission. Only after purchase I found that it is not too reliable and being a poor young person I lived in constant fear of transmission failure.

I also had been referred to a mechanic who was either incompetent or just an asshole. I trusted him because a couple of my friends were happy with his work, but now I believe he made quite a lot of unnecessary repairs that never fixed anything.

Edit: corrected model year

My first car was an 87’ RX7 fast back, though I only got to drive that twice. So, I’ll go with my second, a JDM 90 (I think) Mazda Familia.

Likes:

1. Hatchback
2. Unusually high clearance (not sure if stock) which made it great for fishing and heavy snow.
3. Unusually wide tires. See above.
4. Great acoustics for audio.
5. Amazing gas mileage.

Dislikes:

1. Looked like a toy.
2. You weren’t getting anywhere in a hurry.
3. Burned oil, though it did have 360km and was a lemon lot (military folks know) special for $200.
4. Lemon lot special, so probably had many short term owners.

1986 Monte Carlo, in 2002. v8, auto, rear drive. pulled the “economy” 305, which was actually counter productive in a car with 2.76 gearing, as it made it work so hard to do anything mileage suffered. Dropped in a 400 small block, a known torque monster, mileage improved, and it could pull redline in top gear, and with that gearing, had to be up around 240. speedo had a pin at 140. (redline on that type of 400 is @4700 rpm)