It’s not hard to impress me. I’m still astonished at the fact that I can check my email without the use of my house phone line. However, some things are just objectively impressive, like , which parks itself better than you can, at a price that rivals the cheapest of the cheap.

is what happens when the Japanese do their best Mercedes S-Class impression and end up making something that rivals the best the world has to offer. It’s a make-no-bones-about-it luxury car to rival anything BMW, Audi or Mercedes-Benz could muster at the time. Although there aren’t any insanely overpowered “sports” versions of this car, it serves as a reminder that opulence doesn’t have to be a concept taken hostage by the Europeans.

When the car was new, it was a bargain against its competitors, but now, its less than $18k price tag puts it in a range when anyone can buy this car, and truly feel like they are somebody.

This car in particular has the Executive Package, which includes air conditioned and heated seats front and rear seats, a Mark Levinson audio system that’s one of the best sounding systems fitted to any car, quad-zone climate control, and a system that takes over parallel parking.

While parking assist systems like this are becoming more commonplace, this car pioneered the technology and it’s the car that got it the most right throughout the years. It’s as modern, if not more than anything coming off the assembly line today.

While the car’s relatively high 128,000 miles may be a worrisome figure to some, I’ll always prefer a car that was driven and taken care of, because there’s a greater likelihood that more wear items have been replaced, leading to a paper trail.

With one owner since new, it’s hard to make a case for a daily driver that’s any more affordable, reliable and luxurious than this car. If you do the maintenance yourself or have a good independent mechanic take care of it, yearly repairs can be quite reasonable indeed. It’s not an impulse buy, but it is a smart one, so take my advice and .