The joy of winding out that J20A under the flowing hood of my SX4 Sportback while I make my way to work in the morning really does get the heart racing. Avoiding shifting from 2nd to 1st if it's cold (because it's likely to balk), hearing that thing in the passenger door rattle that I have yet to deal with, it's more than an action. The commute is an emotion.
Between summer beach sand, salty winter roads, the kid's sweaty baseball and football gear, and the dog, I realized I can't have nice things as a DD/family hauler. The RAV4 does nicely for that, even if it's a little boring from a driving experience. I can drive the wife's Mini Cooper S Countryman if I want to row the gears myself (which the kid will be driving soon, too), and the 924S should be pretty close to the nothing-actively-falling-from-the-sky-so-I'll-take-the-Porsche-to-the-office state, so I can scratch that itch for a fun car...
Mine hauls my butt to and from work, huals the boats in and out of the lake. The cars around as needed, Nursery plants home. Household goods from stores, and family and friends stuff around as needed. In Short it works.
Ironically, while my daily driver has zero soul, it is called a Soul. Its not as hateful as a DD could be, it has some utility, and reasonably low operating costs.
I prefer a happy blend of utility, reliability, and some fun, but this is not enough on the fun scale. But then again I have a BRZ to drive around and it surprising how little I actually drive it.
Where I truly enjoy cars is in some sort of competitive event, but I haven't been doing much of that the last decade.
In reply to ProDarwin :
That's my story as well. Except it's 2 decades. A couple of years ago I just decided to stop work on the house. ( it already had 31,000 hrs, yes 31,000 of my life). My. Wife wants to finish it her way so I'll let her.
The race car is on the rotisserie and the XKE is already planned. Major parts on hand.
I accidentally screwed up. Had always DD that were entertaining (my daughter grew up in my Mk2 Golf GTI - was worth the effort with the car seat). When I started making better money, I bought two Corrados. One or the other usually ran. And if they were both dead, I'd just take the GTI. Then I lost my real job, looked at my new paycheck, sold them both and bought an RSX.
About two years ago, young woman on her cellphone center punched it. I just need an appliance, I thought. Enter a 4dr Honda Accord, 2007. At least it has a manual, I thought. Perfect for this 60mi/day commute for the last 5 years of my career.
Last April, my employer then decided to replace our aging (TV) automation with a newer version of the product we'd used at Turner to move from videotape to digital 30yrs ago. Thing doesn't work any better now than it did then. Gave me flashbacks, actually. Younger work buddy reminded me on my birthday that I was now old enough to get into my 401k, so I quit. But now I'm stuck with this Accord!
TL;DR: Life's too short to drive boring cars. Especially if you're going to be in it every day.
I'm retired and so is my wife. No commute. We have a 991 Carrera and AudiQ5 with the 2.0 turbo. Both cars are a joy to drive. My wife actually accuses me of driving the Audi harder than my 911. We're 78 and 79 and have never had a boring car all our years.
I've been daily driving my Miata for almost two years and it's really damn good for the soul.
I put 100k miles on a Saturn Astra and it had just barely enough soul. But it could sure haul more bodies.
When we have kids I'm not sure what we'll do. I tell myself her car can be the people mover, but realistically we probably can't have 4 impractical cars that each seat 2 people and 1 normal car that seats 5. Or can we?
I'm 8 years into my MK6 GTI ownership, have 6 and 4 year old kids.... I'm still happy with how it drives and looks, which is surprising because I've never owned a car this long before. It's a delicate balance of enough sport with space and comfort. Sure my supercharged MR2 or NB Miata were more visceral and engaging, but neither carried kids. I did DD both prior to spawning though... The puck clutch on my MR2, coupled with a clutched supercharger made stop and go traffic exceptionally annoying.... Let out the clutch gently, chatters. Let it out more aggressively, SC clutch wakes up and suddenly you're boosting at idle while still letting out the clutch. Yea, that was annoying.
My dd is a 2006 530i wagon w/sport package. Economical enough. Comfortable (60miles/day commute). Makes me smile, and fits the family in a pinch if the disco ever plays up. (It never has, really) I've considered replacing it with an mx5 or gti, but it ticks just enough boxes to stick around.
Im rebuilding an e30 with comfortable fun as the goal, and it may replace the 530i as commuter. We'll see. More soul, but not nearly as refined as the 530i.
Family car is a disco3 with 2.7 diesel. Economical enough. Makes me smile.
The two most important things my daily does is:
1. get me to work reliably
2. it does NOT affect my bank account monthly...or even most quarters
Honorable mention to: Being pretty nice, and sorta sporty (07 Fusion SEL with a V6)
Mazdas are great for this. Reliable, comfortable and will get you there but still fun to drive with great steering and handling (comparatively)
Out of our 5 vehicles 4 are, in some way or another, fun to be in.
2016 Mini. It's a good car, and drives well. It doesn't have anything like the character or feel of the fun cars I've had. I feel bad not being more excited about it.
I'm really excited about getting to press the MGB into service for more errands now that the shop is closing in on functional. I mean, all it needs is both suspensions rebuilt, swap back to SUs, and fresh brake everything. 
The Mini gets bonus points for starting and defrosting reliably...
Well, technically, yes it moves my body and soul; however, nothing really moves me anymore so.
My most fun dd was a CRX HF. I've had an Evo X and built Galant VR4 as dd's before but the CRX was the most fun. Putting the pedal flat through an on-ramp and never doubt more than 60mph was so fun.
So much of enjoying a daily depends on the path you're traveling. I have a Fiesta and a Miata for dailies, because the commute is 20 miles of twisty back roads. If I had to get on the highway for half an hour instead, a quiet comfy car or SUV would absolutely be the ticket and i'd hate the Miata. Either way, life is too short to be miserable on your commute, adapt accordingly.
DD is a 17 Honda Fit 6 speed. It is slow enough to not get me in trouble and handles well enough for an econobox. It does what it needs to and fires up every morning so it ticks all those boxes. Works okay as a defacto pickup truck as well when needed. Not the most comfortable but I have taken a nap in the back with the seats down.
Yep. Lightly modified '23 BRZ. But "daily" is a loose term for me as I work from home.
IE, I think it's sitting at 990 miles after just over 5 months of ownership.
My DD is a newish minivan, so definitely not a soul enriching vehicle. But it hauls my mtn bikes around, which do enrich me - more than any of my cars can. Right now, my "commute" is working 4 states away at a construction site and living out of a hotel room a couple of miles away. I feel much better about putting an expendable minivan through such abuse than any of my fun cars. Although I admit on weekends I sometimes wish for the fun cars.
I have a small fleet of fun cars I can drive when I want to drive something fun. When I am not working at a site and I go back to WFH with occasional office trips, I hope to drive the fun cars more often.
2018 Mazda3 Sport Hatch 2.0 6MT owner here, bought with 192 miles on the odometer, now about to turn 53,000. I've used it for hardware store runs and 12 hour work trips, hauling 2 kids and hauling 8 cement bags. It's comfortable on the highway, handy around town, and fun on back roads. Lifetime average of over 36 mpg on fuelly.com is nice, too (that works out to under 7 cents per mile). The only other out-of-pocket expenses have been oil & filters every 5,000 miles, air filter, and new tires.
To summarize:
Moves body: Yes
Moves Soul: Yes
Moves Lots of Other Stuff, Too: Yes
My primary car has been a sports car for many decades - currently a 2009 Solstice coupe modded to 375 bhp. In summer it shares with one of the old British cars or my other modern sports car, a 2007 BMW Z4MC.
The wife always has a more practical vehicle f anything large needs to be hauled.
My daily driver requirements:
-Entertaining/engaging to drive and won't make me fall asleep
-Has to handle well
-Reliable
-Comfortable
-A great stereo
-Easy to wrench on
My personal benchmark was set long ago with my old 1989 Nissan Maxima SE. When I look for a new DD, I always have that car in mind, as it was so good at doing all of those things. I've mostly hit the mark with my DD's since, and my current mule, a 2020 Kia Forte GT 6MT, checks all the boxes. It's genuinely fun to drive and pretty efficient for what it is to boot.
So yes, it moves the body, soul, etc.
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