I like my ‘85 Corolla for the same reasons I loved my ‘87 Corolla that I had years ago. They are cheap (I paid $500 for my first one, and $300 for my current one), easy to fix/maintain, reliable as all hell, can handle abuse/neglect without complaint, and handle pretty damn well, even in the snow and ice. I’ve only had two cars last more than six months without either major repairs required or just dying, and those are them. “Bonnie” has ~240k on her right now; she didn’t see many miles for the first 24 years of her life.
I have had two Civics, one of them a 4WD wagon. Both had troubles with the ignition system that required repair, and then died due to bad timing belts. Turns out, the old D-series engines eat timing belts twice as fast as Honda claims. They get good MPG, but can’t handle New England winters all that well.
I had a Subaru Legacy. Great car at first, but expensive to maintain, more expensive to fix, and surprisingly not much better in the snow than my Corolla. The older ones were better, but like VW, they kind of dropped the ball in the mid-90s.
The old 2nd-gen VW Golfs are decent if you like tail-happy little corner-carvers with no floorboards, but they rust from the bottom up and thus are not well-suited for anywhere where they salt the roads. 3rd-gen and newer just suck unless you like electrical issues.
@mrentropy The White Zombie manages ~1.8 second 0–60 runs with no gas at all :p