The delivery driver at work was sick two days ago, and I had to drive the new Ford Transit panel van to do the bank deposit. It has the world's worst transmission. It's everything you hate in an automatic. It's vague. It's hesitant. It's jumpy off the line, but it hates kicking down. You shift into reverse and I swear the car says: "............oh, you wanna go backwards!" *KA-CHUNK* beep, beep, beep...
It's really quite awful to drive. It feels a lot bigger than it actually is, and being a panel van everything is one big blind spot. The nav system sucks. Granted, I spend no time in the thing normally, but it's still annoying.
We used to have a Chevy HHR panel car. I actually had to drive it quite a bit for a few years; vastly prefer it even though it's a lot smaller. Not that the HHR is a good car by any stretch of the imagination. Parts fell off of it on a regular basis, things shook and rattled in it, but it was still endearing in its own way. The turning radius is very tight on it, so it's very maneuverable in tight alleys, it was quick off the line without the neck-snapping jumpiness of the Ford, and of course, it wasn't mine. I ratbagged the living **** out of that thing, and it remained my good luck charm. Over the now nine years I've worked for my employers, I'm the only driver (out of four) who never got a ticket and never got into an accident. Even though I know I'm easily the hardest on the cars. When I was training one guy, a couple of times I had to say: "Okay. Don't do what I just did."