Make sure it has wheels .

Growing up on the farm some 30 odd years ago my sisters used to drive the old car in the paddock. I was about 8 years old, i loved to steer but i could not understand the gears. We moved from the farm after that so i had no capability to drive at all without a licence. Then my parents got me a 12 speed push bike, and after i got to know how that bike worked i finally understood what gears were all about. i got my learners licence at 16 hopped in the car for my first drive and drove it almost perfectly right there and then and shocked my mom who was expecting all the usual learner difficulties. I drove the car perfectly because i understood why and how the gears function.

In addition to the usual efficiencies that a manual vehicle gives you, many people are not aware of another very useful thing manual vehicles can do.....

One time i was driving through a flood causeway and my car engine stopped running and could not start. Was i stuck? No, i put the car in first gear and turned the key, yep, the starter motor running off the battery pulled me out!! You can do this trick to get out of trouble in some tricky situation if the engine won't start. But if you have an auto, well sorry, that's too bad, you have to sit in front of that oncoming train or drown in the floodwater. (some modern manuals have an absurd idiot mechanism to disable that ability???)
The real genius there is the almost limitless capacity of 'interchangeable parts'.

Thank you for having a sense of humor about that; it really was kind of a troll posts. Purchasing a car can be a huge pain and my heart goes out to you.

no problems, and thanks,

Humour aside, I am the kind of person who appreciates the genius that often rises out of poverty. Especially when i live in a country where the government is obsessed with stamping out all elements of self sufficiency among individuals.

Edit: what that exactly means is this.... The government very much dislikes or will outright disallow you to find ways of evading the established dependencies society has bestowed upon you as a consumer in the larger economy that the government controls.

He said he is looking for something with a lot of cargo room. I think this one would be more appropriate. Although, it may not have that get up and go that your model has.

I don't know what you'll find in the Australian marketplace, but:

"It has to be Auto (unfortunately) because my wife cannot/will not drive manual. "

Didn't you put the manual transmission clause in your wedding vows?

Yes, it's a consideration. The engine and transmission were designed to perform well at highway speed. It's not as if sustained 4k RPM is out of spec. And from what info I can find related to the Cino, it had a reputation for reliability and great fuel economy. So sure, it's a tiny engine (less than 70HP!) that ran fast, but it performed to expectations. That's why I wondered what you meant by 'serious problem'.

If you're looking for optimum engine speed, consider a continuously variable transmission.

Maybe you can have your wife learn to drive manual for about $350,- assuming you already have a decent PC.
Just buy a Logitech G27 and a good racing simulator like rFactor or a few months subscription on iRacing.
If she can drive the Nurburgring in a 400hp car in less than 10 minutes in full sim mode without spinning once she should be able to handle a manual gearbox. =)

By the way you need to have a sim with old cars, GT Legends on Steam is good, most modern racecars use synchronized crashboxes with triple clutches and using manual clutch and H-shifter would be pointless. iRacing has the MX-5 among others, so should be okay too.

She's a nun, why doesn't she just fly?
He probably chose to include a clause about not destroying the car, which rendered that clause unenforceable.

Theoretically the answer would be yes, and a good candidate here in Australia is the Honda Jazz. But just because it is a variable speed transmission, it does not guarantee that they bothered to make it have good RPM at hyway speed.

This is the whole reason for my post to begin with.... I know allot about cars and i can find out everything about them on the internet no problem. It is finding out about what kind of RPM/gear balance different models have that is extremely difficult! And after that Ford Festiva debacle, i am very keen to avoid any such situation again.

Can i buy a Honda Jazz? i just don't know??

I totally sympathize.

I drive a 98' Volkswagen GTI and I love it. It's flippin' quick, and the engine is still in excellent shape. But it's old enough that parts are falling off. A couple of weeks ago, the heat shield under the catalytic converter popped off as I backed out of my garage. I didn't bottom out or anything-- the three bolts had just corroded away to points. (So I'm careful not to park in long grass. Ha.) But I have two little kids now, and though I have tools and spare bits like belts in the trunk, I don't want to be stuck on the roadside with a problem I can't reasonably handle myself. (Which is most problems!) Plus, the safety features are a decade+ out of date. So, like you, I'm looking for a replacement car.

I've been trudging through the manufacturers' websites, and invariably I have to scroll through a yard of obvious crap like cupholders and power steering to get any information about the engine itself, if it is even listed. Plus, the dealers around here are dire. There must be less than ten different models in any given lot, and these guys devote their lives to selling them. But can they answer basic questions about any of them? Hell no.

I find that car enthusiast forums have by far the best information, but it requires a bit of finding. Certainly, this was the case when I was reading about your Cino's engine. My next best source is car magazines.

I was only half-serious when mentioning the CVT, it just seemed to suit your tastes. Really, though, don't fret about how an engine normally behaves at highway speeds. Most cars are designed to be happiest with constant highway driving. Since you seem to be in the market for a used vehicle, the plus side is you'll be able to find lots of information about reliability.

Anyway, I wish you luck finding something that'll make you happy.

Thanks, but don't be fooled by thinking what most cars are designed for..... their designed for making money and if they can get away with screwing the consumer without them realizing, of course they will - hence the reason 3 speed auto's exist!

Some more reputable car manufacturers will let you know that a car is designed for the city and not the hyway, hence the use of the word 'metro' or something similar in the name - most do not.

My first car when i was young was a 74 Torana - that is the sports model Holden of the 70's. But it was a real piece of shit - which a first car normally is. You won't believe some of the dodgy things with that car, oh boy.... one time i was at the supermarket and suddenly the fan belt started squealing something shoking! I checked and saw the rear bearing on the generator had siezed so i removed the bearing and solved the problem. The generator had long since stopped working before that anyway and i was charging the battery with a charger every week. However, after removing that rear bearing i did not realize that i had given an escape route to the internal section of the generator and several weeks afterwards i was driving down the street and heard a big clunk thud bang then saw it rolling behind my car and nearly took out an old lady walking down the street! Now it must have been a remarkable sight to see a large mechanical part fall out of an engine and the car keeps on going!! hahahaha

Other things - i had an old rolled up sock 'stickitaped' to the engine for an oil cap,

there was a big hole in the floor where i could sweep all the dirt out,

Somone stole it and left it in a creek, we got it out and it still kept running after drying out!

One time the headlights high beam switch broke (the old floor switch) and the headlights stopped working, so i had to pull the wires and my freind had to hold them while i was driving and it was burning his fingers and he would let go and i would shout "lights, lights" so he had to keep holding it again.....

one time a mechanic looked at the 'points' and said "i don't know how this car can be running, it should not be possible".

Oh how i loved that car!

Edit: Oh and i forgot to mention how you always had to keep all the windows open because of the smoke coming in under the dashboard.... and although the car did not blow much smoke while driving normally, if you suddenly accelerated, a huge cloud of black smoke would bellow out the tail pipe - very handy for tailgaters!

If you drive a lot (over 25000km / year) nothing beats a diesel in fuel economy.

Not so much.

see article: http://www.carsguide.com.au/news-and-reviews/car-news/the_great_diesel_fuel_efficiency_myth

But that's all debatable, and i could probably drive one of those newer diesels to great advantage using the right driving techniques. But what is of far more significance in my case is the price range. diesel cars in my price range are much older and less efficient, that combined with the fact that the diesel engine is slower, i could simply get a smaller petrol engine to do the same job and because the petrol engine is smaller, it uses less fuel than the diesel!

Plus diesel is quite a bit more expensive at the pump in Australia.

I don't live in Australia and am not familiar with prices there, but I do tend to think of small hatchbacks as particularly cool. It may be out of your price range, but I love my Mini Cooper, it's always a blast to drive, but may be a bit small to use for a comfortable trip. Toyota Yaris/Vitz is pretty cool, I think anyway. Hyundai Accent is good also, but I view it as somewhat feminine, despite the only people I know of owning one being men. I naturally don't recommend any American cars. I also really like the Mitsubishi Eclipse, but they stopped making them, and it's only a two seater, but man did it look cool.
I would really like it if they would sell Daihatsu here, I would buy a kei car if they would sell them. Particularly the Copen. Still don't know about AU price, but I also like the Fiat 500 family of vehicles.