I’d saved up for a while when I was 20ish, and I wanted a NEW car. Only thing I could get a loan for was the cheapest offering - a stripped manual Honda Fit. I fell in love with it and ordered one from Japan (they didn’t have a fully stripped version for sale in my town, so it was a “special” order).
Long story short, I learned to drive stick for the first time when I picked it up from the lot with zero miles and had to drive it home, and then to work the next day… that first commute was UGLY. But I more or less had the hang of it by the time I got home that night. I still drive that car daily almost two decades later - and I absolutely still love it. It’s never needed one thing beyond regular maintenance in all those 150k miles. They literally don’t make ‘um like that any more.