I’m currently driving a low-mileage 2012 Mazda 3 that we have owned since new, and it’s pretty great. It’s a 40mpg hwy vehicle, is fun to drive on the back roads to work manually selecting gears, and I can load 8ft lumber and 10ft pipes into it lengthwise (it’s a sedan too, not hatchback) at home depot while the guys hopping back into their shiny $80,000 commuter trucks watch me.

I think I want to replace it with an MX5 one day. Recent Mazda interiors I’ve looked at seem to have kept a reasonable balance of physical controls along with moderately sized infotainment screens. So maybe a new one could be on the table. We’ll see how the next revision turns out.