In many ways the 1990s was a real purple patch for car manufacturing - cars became good to drive but remained simple to work on. You don't specify what type of car you'd like or whether you'd prefer petrol or diesel, but from a simple maintenance perspective anything Ford or Vauxhall or from one of the Japanese manufacturers won't be a difficult to own or maintain - rust and wear and tear being your biggest issues. In the past four years I've personally put 50,000 miles on a 2002 Honda Accord and only had to spend money on tyres, brake pads and an exhaust back box... Bangernomics at its best.