I knew about the Goolie STE's (or ASTEE's living next to Quebec;)) but then the argument is more easily made on a mid-size car, if you're at say $25k, it's not bad to look at another $3k for AWD and a few more options as they usually come.
I used to love Tempot's/Slopaz's for two reasons.
1) The V6 models with a manual shift were a hoot and a half to drive, they went like a cat with it's tail on fire.
2) Man were they ever a great value as a used car. Parts were stupid cheap, a complete front brake set was only about $40. When I was selling cars if I ever got one on trade that still had a good body, they were all home runs. Never paid more than $500, never cost more than another $500 to certify because the parts were/are ridiculously cheap and buyers were easily found for $2500 and up.
As much as people used to hate them, to this day I still believe in their value because they were so cheap to run. I figured the ones that stayed out of the scrap heap for longer than 6 or 7 years were the "good" ones as it were. I even had my mother in law in one 6 years ago while she was still working. Bought it for $1200 certified & etested, she drove it for 2.5 years with minimal issues, gave it to my brother in law who ripped it up and down the 400 every day for another year before some buffoon in a Jeep slid through an intersection in a snow storm and t-boned it. My brother in law walked away and his insurance company handed him a cheque for $3000.
