I drove a car (that sounds exactly the same as the one you drove) today and was TOTALLY impressed. I owned an 87 Mercedes 300D and expected to experience some turbo lag, but it is virtually invisible, and this little car will GO!!!! I was originally thinking about the stick, but having played with the auto tranny a bit during my test drive, I'm going to go with the auto. And the car is CHEAP... what a tremendous value!!!! It sounds like NO DELIVERY ANTICIPATED for at least 2 more months however.