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I used to have a TR4, had a rear main seal leak, the rag top was gone, it had a weird metric tire size and had those knockoff center hubs, I drove it from San Jose, CA to Salt Lake City and back, slept in it, drove it in the rain and kept a case of oil with it all the time. This around 1977.

About the only issue I had with it was the Stromberg carbs, I was only about 19 but I figured out how to rebuild them, and I replaced the head gasket, I wish I had another car like this one.

I have been a general mechanic with a very large amount of Snapon tools for hire since 1980, in the last 15 years I stopped working on cars and went into heavy equipment.

The cars I hated with a passion to work on was anything Dodge, they always had weird electrical issues and some funky carbs, the transmissions all leaked. Almost any American car made in the 1980’s with most of the biggest crap coming from GM like the Olds diesel, the Chevy Cavalier and Citation.

I would rather say the cars I like the best were to me the ones that were organized, well designed, easy to work on and were actually not seen much in the shops. The American cars were pure crapola until around 1990 and then the Fords seem to get their act together, GM always seem to have a wild spaghetti nest of poorly laid out vacuum hoses to incomprehensible stuff.

People say they hate Mercedes and BMW I have to disagree, they and the VW Rabbit were easy to work on. But the emissions garbage is what made it so hard to make a living as an auto mechanic.
It was probably the big reason I quit working on cars and I worked at three dealerships and a lot of private shops over the years, mostly anything from Japan is precise though troubleshooting seems awkward, anything from the UK is an electrical nightmare but I loved the Jaguars.

Actually if I were to go looking for a restoration project almost anything British would be my number one choice, I do like their style.