I believe that the 2012 Honda Accord V6 we had was near the height of automobiles.

Quit laughing.

It had excellent power - 270 HP. It was comfortable and reasonably fun to drive. It had modern safety features like air bags. It didn't have any of the nanny driver crap that drives me nuts in the car that replaced it. It got decent mileage for a heavy V6 - on trips we'd see around 32 mpg, 25 mpg around town, day-to-day driving, in part because of the cylinder deactivation when cruising. Damn thing likely would have run forever if it hadn't been wrecked - at 8 years old and 100,000 miles, we had zero plans to replace it. And at that point, aside from regular maintenance, I think we had replaced the driveshafts and one lug stud that had broken (which was likely the result of someone overtightening it at some point, not a failure at the manufacturer).

I never thought I'd say this about an Accord, but: Damn, I really miss that car. A lot.

Maybe a 2013 to get the better styling and improved infotainment system; the 2012 was not a looker, and it didn't have things like music over Bluetooth, and the DVD-based nav system was dated when the car was new. But it ran and ran and ran, and I never had to worry about that car.

Since then, cars have become less powerful in a bid to offset inefficient SUVs and still meet CAFE, and they have those irritating driver nanny features with alarms blaring as the system misinterprets the situation and thinks you're about to crash into something. God, I hate the car that replaced that Accord. And pretty much all cars have those damn "features" now, so even if I turn them off, I gotta pay for them and carry them around all the time.

That era was apparently the sweet spot where you could buy a modern, comfortable, powerful, efficient sedan and still have fun driving it.