Replies

I recommend the Altima if you're choosing between that and a Celica.

It's a money thing. Celicas tend to cost less. Part of that cost is my fault, though. My next car will have a stick shift. This is an absolute, non-negotiable requirement and if I get an Altima, it will have to be a V6. Only like 1 in 500 Altimas are a V6/manual drive train. This makes them hard to find and getting one with less than 100,000 miles or isn't a 2002 model (the year the car was redesigned) gets prohibitively expensive. As I said, my budget is around $10k, but the Altima I want with the options I require is pushing me into the $14k range. I can get a Celica GTS in the 9k-10k range.

I'll have to say, though, the Altima's V6 produces a nice nascar sound when you floor it and it pushes you back in your seat quite nicely. It's definitely my pick over the Celica, overall, but the money is so much higher. The only place the Altima loses to the Celica is in styling. The Altima is far more aggressive on style than most cars in its class, but it's still a mid-size family car. The Grand Prix has the kind of styling I like in a mid-size, but these are very hard to find in stick shift, not to mention they aren't going to be as generally dependable over the long term as Nissan.