Well here's my shot at things.
Story starts 3 weeks ago today, I'm driving my 96 Grand Am home from work and it just dies at a stoplight on the way home. I noticed it was getting a little hot, maybe it overheated, but that didn't tell me why it just stopped running. So I sit there while I call the wife and get a towtruck on the way. Well, try to at least, it was going to be 2 hours before they could get a tow to me! Well I tried a few more times to start it, got lucky and it caught, got me past the busy intersection and to my turn off where it died again. Fortunately this time someone stopped and helped my push it thru the turn and off to the side of the road.
Anyways I get it home, there is no coolant at all in the reserve tank and it took both gallons that I had so that had me worried especially when I didn't see an obvious leak on the ground from the past few days. Sure enough, I check the oil and it's turned all milky, I've got a blown head gasket! I get some price estimates and 13 hours of labor was going to cost me more then the car was worth, $1500, all for a gasket on an engine with 180k miles on it. Wasn't looking to be worth that money so we went car shopping the next day.
With my budget there was only one new car I could afford that I was actually interested in, the Honda Fit. It was either that or look at used cars. So we go to the local honda dealer and they had a few on the lot, looked them over, took a Sport AT for a test drive, but of course they had no Sport MT's in stock. The dealer tried hard to talk me into an automatic, I was about to get up and go home to start calling other dealers in town when he offered to call around and see about a dealer trade.
Well he found 10 Sport MT's on the locator, spent over an hour calling them, every place he called they were already spoken for. One of the guys flat out told him he wouldn't find one. I would have been surprised but I was hoping because it was going to be August before they got one on a truck. The last place he called had a Red Sport MT in stock that wasn't spoken for! Finally! So they went and got it late that night and I took delivery the next afternoon. The guy who said it wouldn't happen still doesn't believe he managed to find one.
Mods, none yet, it's bone stock, but then I haven't had it for 3 weeks yet and I'm still on my first tank of gas. Handles great, moves well enough for the gas milage it gets. I've got my eye on upgrading the intake, exhaust, header and maybe some coilovers for a start, but with a couple little ones and our first house car upgrades will have to wait. Besides I've gota get it past the breakin period first. lol I've been thinking of trying some autocrossing now that I have a car worth taking.
Couldn't have picked a better color if I had a choice, which I didn't.
Update: Just this past week I took my Fit and picked up a closet door for my brother as it won't fit in his Mustang. It's a bit ironic that to bring home a large object he needed a smaller car.