My current work car is a hatchback. Being a hatchback it's great for the type of work I do and gets pretty good gas mileage, also needed, as I do a lot of driving for work. (Not a 50 miles each work day, usually more just from store to store in town. However there are times I do drive over an hour to another city for some work, that's around 70 miles or more each way on those days, but that's not a weekly thing). However, mine is an automatic. I do not know how to drive a manual and unless we can afford a Ferrari or or some other European high end car with paddle shifters I have no interest whatsoever in ever learning how to drive a manual. My husband does know how to drive them and the one we were given by his sister we got rid of after a year as he was sick and tired of driving it in Charlotte rush hour traffic. The other issue I get extremely sick riding in vehicles with manual transmissions no matter how good the driver is at shifting. (Yep get motion sick fairly easily, and can get motion sick in automatic transmission vehicles, hence the reason we will never own a van of any type.)

Anyway very interesting thread, fun to read and learn about others looking and testing different vehicles.