Cozy Three-Pedal Coupes: 2004 Toyota Solara vs 2009 Nissan Altima

Good morning! This week, we are sticking with sticks – every car will have a traditional three-pedal manual, what used to be called a “standard” transmission. Don’t know how to drive one? That’s all right; it’s never too late to learn.

Last week, I asked you to pick one project car and one daily driver from our four finalists. A few of you were upset that you couldn’t choose the Impala as a daily driver, but come on – do you really want to manuever that sucker around in parking lots all the time? Or put up with ten miles to the gallon just to get to work? I mean, I guess if you’re okay with that, you do you – but it wasn’t the assignment.

The rest of us couldn’t form much of a consensus among the other pairings. The Mirage paired with the big red Impala ended up winning, but not by much. I think that’s the way I would go, too; that Focus would bore the hell out of me, and the only reason I would want the Jaguar is to rescue it from someone who wants to pull out its good-running V12 and stuff in a Chevy V8. But actually, that’s a pretty good reason.

Now then: Manual transmissions are a funny thing on here. If I feature one, I usually try to make sure the other car has one as well, because it is rare that an automatic will beat a manual in the votes. The manual has to be really dull or undesirable, or the automatic has to be really cool and special, otherwise the voting is a foregone conclusion.

So this week, I’m only searching for manuals, and I’m trying to find some cars that you don’t often see with a third pedal. Today’s cars are rare enough, being two-door variants of popular four-door sedans, but on top of that, they both have stickshifts. Let’s check them out.

2004 Toyota Camry Solara SE – $5,000

Engine/drivetrain: 2.4-liter dual overhead cam inline 4, five-speed manual, FWD

Location: Austin, TX

Odometer reading: 223,000 miles

Operational status: Runs and drives great

If, like me, you’ve ever worked anywhere that brought in an efficiency expert, you’ve probably heard the term “Kaizen,” probably in the context of an incredibly boring PowerPoint presentation. But regardless of the involvement of thirty-something dudes in polo shirts, the concept is sound: make small improvements, all the time, instead of making grand sweeping changes or resting on your laurels. And if you’re looking for a concrete example, there’s likely not a better one than the Toyota Camry – at least until Toyota discontinued the manual transmission option. I can’t in good conscience call that an “improvement.”

The best Camrys paired that manual transmission with a series of four-cylinder engines; yes, the V6 option was available with a manual for a while, but it’s so crowded in the engine bay that repairs and maintenance will make you regret going for the extra power. In this 2004 model, the four-cylinder engine displaces 2.4 liters and has variable valve timing. It also, critically, uses a timing chain rather than a belt, eliminating one of the more odious maintenance tasks of earlier Camry engines. This one has cleared 200,000 miles and is not letting up; the seller says it runs and drives great.

The two-door Solara is a bit of an odd duck: it’s too big and soft to be a sports coupe, and not nice enough to be considered a personal luxury coupe. It’s basically just a Camry with worse access to the rear seats. As you would expect from the high mileage, it’s worn and grubby inside, but nothing looks damaged. It’s an SE model, with all the options, and everything works including the air conditioning.

Outside, it’s in good condition, but I could never call this a good-looking car. It looks simultaneously inflated and melted, and good grief does it have a huge ass. But at least it’s clean and shiny.

2009 Nissan Altima 2.5S Coupe – $3,500

Engine/drivetrain: 2.5-liter overhead cam inline 4, six-speed manual, FWD

Location: Rochester, NY

Odometer reading: 181,000 miles

Operational status: Runs and drives great

The Nissan Altima has a terrible reputation that is in no way the fault of the car itself. In fact, when you consider the neglect and abuse that the stereotypical Altima driver heaps on the car, I would say it’s something of a hero. What other car could do 90 MPH on a donut spare, with half its front bumper missing and probably fifteen-thousand-mile-old oil? It stands to reason, then, that a well-maintained Altima should last just about forever.

In 2009, the Altima was available with two engines: a QR25DE 2.5-liter four and Nissan’s ever-present VQ35DE V6. Either one could be had with either a CVT automatic or a six-speed manual. This one has the manual and the four-cylinder. This engine had some serious oil consumption issues in earlier model years, but Nissan had taken care of it by this point. It runs and drives great, according to the seller, and has been “treated with love.”

I gotta say, I love this car’s interior. When so many other cars are available in nothing but black or gray inside, these oxblood-red seats and door inserts really stand out. It’s such a little thing to add a splash of color, but it makes such a huge difference. I don’t know why manufacturers don’t do it more often. It’s in really good condition, too. With an interior this clean, I’m inclined to believe that the seller took proper care of everything else.

These Altima coupes are uncommon; I think I’ve only seen a handful of them in person, and nearly always black like this. The photos in this ad are terrible, but as far as I can tell, it’s not rusty. Earlier Altimas had a propensity to rust, but these don’t have the same reputation. Still, since it’s an upstate New York car, you’d be wise to peek underneath.

Two-door coupes are disappearing from the market, and I guess you could say these two are good examples of why. Neither one of them has anything to recommend it over the four-door sedan version of the same car, except for the novelty of being a coupe. But they are a bit more interesting to look at than their four-door counterparts, so I’m glad that Toyota and Nissan decided to offer them. Even more so because they were available with manual transmissions. They’re both getting up there in mileage, but both look like they’ve been well-kept. So what’s your strategy: pay the Toyota tax, or save a little and go for the lower-mileage Nissan?