What Made You End Up With Your Current Daily Driver?

Photo: Logan K. Carter

Car people are some of the kindest and most humble people in our society. Oh wait, car people are rotted, self-inflated know-it-alls who refuse to change their preconceived notions regardless of how wrong they are. That being said, every car person who doesn’t have a fully fledged car collection needs a daily driver, and they’re often more mundane than we’d like to admit. There seems to be a shame associated with a car person taking the logical route and running something affordable and reliable yet dull versus something expensive and unreliable yet fun when it’s working right. I don’t agree with this; in fact I think you can still be a car person no matter what you drive and I don’t think it’s very nice to judge someone by their car, since everyone faces different challenges in life.

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I say all this to hopefully encourage folks with boring daily drivers to comment on this story and share what it is about their boring daily that convinced them to pull the trigger on it. When I was car shopping, I had a laundry list of wants, so my daily had to be peppy, fun, fuel efficient, safe, have a great stereo, and have either a convertible top or a retractable panoramic sunroof, all within my meager budget. That narrowed my list down to just a few cars, and since I was buying used, I was only interested in something CPO or sold with an extended warranty. I was scrolling the CarMax app one day when I came across an adorable little 2017 Mini Cooper S 5-door that was loaded to the gills, and the rest is history.

Ultimately, I ended up with Miss Mini as my daily driver because it checks all my boxes. Despite being a 2017, it has automatic cruise control, self-parking functionality, a Harmon Kardon stereo, automatic emergency braking, a huge panoramic sunroof, plenty of room up front for my gargantuan frame, and I had a hoot and a half on my test drive. Once I bought it I learned it gets great gas mileage, too, usually in the mid-30s. Miss Mini was the perfect storm for my ultimate daily, and I honestly don’t know what I want next.

So what’s your story? What is it about your daily driver that made you buy it? Maybe you needed something big enough to haul the family unit around every day, or maybe you knew a convertible would complete you, or maybe you found a killer deal that you couldn’t pass up. There’s no right or wrong answer, just tell us the story of what made you end up with your current daily driver.