Ordinarily, it’s best practice to buy a car that fits into your life, not one that you have to rearrange your life to make fit. Sometimes, though, things don’t work out that way. Sometimes, your love for a car is so deep and so profound, you’re willing to inconvenience yourself and occasionally your family and friends to make the relationship work.
I can’t say I personally have a great example of this in my fairly short car ownership history, though I will say that the Fiesta ST I currently drive is certainly the closest answer I’ve got to this question. Yes, it’s a hatchback with four doors, which seems pretty practical at the outset. At this point, though, I’ve made enough vertebrae-shattering cross-country journeys and wholesale store runs to know that a car that’s a bit too small and harsh can be very inconvenient in those key moments when you need them to be anything but. At least it tends to get me out of designated driver duties because nobody wants to be stuck in the back seat.
The answer I want to have to this question, though, is none other than the GR Yaris. I’d love nothing more than to have an even smaller, less practical hatchback ruin my life, for the simple reason that it’s a rally homologation special. I’d put up with all of the bullshit if only Toyota would give me the chance.
So, then, what absolutely impractical, inhospitable car have you tried to live with, and how did you make that flawed relationship work?