[fredjacksonsan]

My vote: Subaru. Since you are from Florida you will have enough trouble driving in snow and ice, and AWD will help. Subies are reliable and pretty much universally loved by their owners.

In cars, generally it's not the manual transmission that wears, but the clutch. Haven ridden motorcycles you are ahead of the learning curve for manual transmission in cars, compared to someone that has only driven automatic trans.

Not sure what you mean by "won't need to upgrade" but that suggests to me a performance vehicle. Again Subaru will fit the bill; although not as high performance as some of the vehicles you mentioned, you have the advantage of being able to drive in any weather.