I have a 2008 Honda Civic two door. I bought it new, and it's up over 111,000 miles now. When I bought it, Honda had recently rolled out the Accord coupes, and I thought they looked fantastic. I've always had small cars, and when I test drove the Accord, it felt enormous. I test drove the Civic and immediately liked it. Mine is a manual transmission, and I think that makes it more fun to drive despite the small engine. I have no complaints. There's some very minor paint chipping on the front edge of the hood, and one of the coat hangers in the back won't flip up. Not bad for eight years. My next car is an ongoing struggle for me. I could probably afford to pay more than I did for the Civic. I was looking at BMW 2 and 3 series, and the Focus RS looks great, too. But when I stop and think about prices, would I rather have a Focus RS or an Imprezza plus $10,000? I can think of a lot of things I'd enjoy doing with that money. So I'm back to looking at cars under $25,000 again. Smaller, decent fuel economy, decent practicality, and AWD are the things I'm looking for. It's too bad the Focus ST is only FWD.
My dad bought one of these: It cost him $67,000 with $20k worth of avionics in it. Then it was annihilated in a hailstorm so he cashed the insurance check and bought another for $65k with a Banks turbonormalizer. 25,000ft ceiling, 200 knot cruising speed, 1100 knot range. Now, I don't want a plane. But I found myself comparing things to it. Scion FR-S? half a Mooney Unit. 2015 Corvette? 1.1 Mooney Units. Lamborghini Aventador? Like 9 Mooney Units. From a marginal utility standpoint it ceased to make sense to spend a lot of money on a car. Because while purchase, insurance, hangaring and gas sure buys a lot of airline tickets, it still makes more sense to have a fast plane than a fast car, at least an expensive one.
A toy car remains an intriguing option, and it relieves me of worrying about buying a less thrilling every day car now. A used Miata would still be a lot of fun on a beautiful day, and I don't have to worry about its impracticality in the winter with snowy roads.