my favorite is the 1980 toyota celica
bulletproof, 20r engine. rear wheel drive for snow fun. hard to find nowadays
this post was submitted on 18 Jan 2024
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The drawback of older cars, wear aside, is they weren't designed with things like crumple zones or airbags.
There's a sweet spot here ; any car with ABS, electronic timing and fuel injection is "modern" enough as to be everyday reliable, mostly. Before 2000 that's about all the tech there is, and it is mature and effective by then. Then jump above and forget entirely 2000~2006 for loads of "new” tech that turns indeed your car into a computer (or many); by 2010 many cars do feature aircon, anti-slip, cruise control without being luxury items, and the added comfort is appreciable. By then there ain't yet any communication tech in them, you still own your car.
Also, if you avoid the top trim in average cars, you won't be plagued by that until very recently. My 2006 Prius was supremely comfortable and devoid of that modern shit ; current 2012 golf also has cool features (top trim.convertible) without a Sim card is a subscription in sight. I bought both secondhand at 10+ years of age.
Your requests are quite easy to satisfy. Just avoid fancy cars.
Fiat Panda 4wd is a perfect example. Now, the question is, is it a car you'd like to drive?
Anyway, full of European and Japanese cars that satisfy your requirements. Most cars cheaper than 25K euros in Europe actually satisfy those requirements
Not a helpful answer but I gotta rant since it just happened yesterday. The spouse was driving halfway across the state when all hell broke loose on their 2018 Honda crv. In the interest of time I won't do the complete laundry list of error and warning messages, but it was just about every major system and safety feature, from tpms, brake failure, collision avoidance, cruise, lane departure, coolant temp, and something about the moonroof. There were a total of 14 warning messages and 6 dash icons. They called me in a bit of a panic, so I, thinking electrical issue, found a dealership near the route and gave directions.
Four hours later, I got a call with an update: the "check engine" light was triggered by a detected misfire in one cylinder. "so what caused the cavalcade of calamity then?" I asked.
"Oh, that is just what the car does when the check engine light comes on," replied the service writer. "it does that to make sure you notice the check engine light."
You gotta be shitting me.
We didn't have the $1,500 for the fix for the fuel injector problem that caused the obd to trigger in the first place, so an oil change later, the codes were cleared and so were all the errors and warnings.
What the fuck.