The test drive

My car, now 12 years old, has developed a problem that will cost so much to fix that I have 99% decided to get a new car.

I knew that the end was coming eventually; I've been looking around at other models for a couple of years now. Things I want in my car:

• It must be as small as possible. I like being able to squeeze into impossibly small parking spaces in NYC.
• It must get the best available gas mileage.

I also want manual transmission, and prefer a 2-door hatchback, like my current car.

Up until recently, I was unable to find anything with a reasonable gas mileage, other than a hybrid. I'd been considering the Honda Insight, but they're expensive for such a small car, and it's hard to find a used one (Honda actually stopped making them last year, which is a pity).

In 2006, two acceptable cars came out: the Honda Fit, and the Toyota Yaris. My heart is really set on the Yaris. The Fit is a four-door and strikes me as excessively large. It gets slightly worse mileage than the Yaris. The more I think it over, the more I want the Yaris, and the more I want it now.

There's just one little problem: I have to test drive one to make sure it doesn't have any features that are so objectionable that I couldn't stand to drive it for the next 10 years. I am incredibly eager to test drive one, at this point, but my local dealer does not have a hatchback with manual transmission in stock. It's very frustrating... here I am ready to spend huge wads of cash, and there's this seemingly trivial, yet essential, barrier: the need for a test drive. *Sigh*.