I test drove a 2016 #Nissan #Micra, 5 sp. manual the other day. Car in excellent, clean condition, fairly low mileage. Yeah, that gearing leaves something to be desired. Took it to the freeway for a bit. The engine has plenty of pep to easily get to 100 km/h, but then you're revving 3000 RPM, reaching to shift to a 6th that isn't there. Also, I found the 2nd gear sychro to be slow, causing shifting resistance, resulting in somewhat awkward starts. Some of that lack of smoothness was me not having driven manual for 15 years, but it was irritating not to have it go into 2nd like butter. The car was also too basic. I could live with manually cranked windows and manually moved mirrors. These are actually a good thing. No remote locks or A/C though. I can get a machine that has these things and revs 2600 at 100.