Having a cheap car that I actually still enjoy well enough is definitely nice. Even around town out here I generally don't bother driving the vette if I'll be parking on the street, don't need ol' Bessie backing her F350 into it. "Oops, didn't see it back there!"
I'm pretty impressed with the performance and value of all of the cars with the 1zz/2zz engines really. Celica, vibetrix, mr2s, elise are all among the best at what they do.
My friends who live in manhattan don't have cars at all and that seems to make life pretty simple and fun but it's not for me.