The ones 20+ years ago. None of the modern ones could even be remotely classified as reliable. Absolutely stay away from the X5 those are horrible and honestly all of them are electronic nightmares and are complicated and expensive. Maybe a lease for a newer one... That said, the older 90s ones were a lot better made and simpler but getting too old to be worth your time.

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Really wanted a M3, but too expensive even for a used one, so I had a 2001 and a 2005 325i Coupe. I so wanted them in manual so they'd be similar to the M3, but they were impossible to find, so I settled for the auto; however, the automatics in both was super, never an issue. They still made them good back then. After the e46 BMW went downhill

It would have to be an old model and a manual shift. I cant think of one I'd recommend though because they all fall apart with age.

15 years ago they were still somehow decent.

I would suggest looking at the e36 gen 3 series, those were excellent cars, even Scotty praised them as fun cars for a good price and they can last a long time. You could also look at the E30 3 series, which IMO are nicer than the e36.