So I've driven a Mustang for the last 8 years and have loved it, despite being the underpowered V6. It's just a fun car and wasn't that expensive.

But now it's time for a new car. I am commuting 1hr+ two ways everyday and my current car is getting a little old. Plus it's a manual transmission, and as fun as it is, sitting in rush hour traffic twice a day really is much easier to handle with an automatic.

Because I've enjoyed my current car so much, the obvious move for me is the new mustang- I love the new look. I am comfortable with the 30K-35K price a new V8 will cost me (and I'm considering the convertable). I've test driven a cow-orker's new Mustang and it was a lot of fun. In fact, the silly reason I'm even considering buying something else is because two of the developers on our ten person team already have new Mustangs, and it just sort of seems a little lame to buy the same car everyone else has (especially only a month after my teammate bought his). Probably that won't be enough to stop me, but I started wondering what else might be out there. I've looked at a couple web sites to see what is out there (since I don't see car commercials anymore I am hoplessly oblivious to what cars are out right now), but haven't really seen anything that even remotely interests me. Then I figured maybe someone here might have some thoughts about what is available in my price range. So any thoughts? I don't really need a family car, but I'm not stuck on a sports car either. I just want something fun to drive if I'm going to spent 2.5 hours in it every day.

Also, one thing that I like about the new Mustang is an aux in in the console that I can plug my Karma into, which pretty much eliminates the need to install my empeg. Is this standard on new cars, or are only some putting this in as a standard feature? That is a huge selling point for me, as simple a thing as it is.