Taking a Road Trip

[quattroboi]

I'm new here- had bad experiences asking for help on the web.. but I'm looking to take a road trip and need all the advice and help I can get. So I'm going for about 15K miles- all 48 states. I'm taking my best friend along and eveyrthing but the car is figured out.

What I'm looking for
I know everyone is a bit biased to mustangs here, but I'm basically looking for something:
Simple and reliable (IE not something that would take a genius to work on)
Convertible
Not brand new
decent gas mileage
CAN seat 3 or 4 in a pinch, 2 is where it's at though
Manual tranny is preferable
and finally- something fun to drive, with a bit of attitude.

I would appreciate ANY constructive advice- I'm going in about 4 monthes and just need an idea of 2 or 3 cars to start looking out for. I'm going to be taking it all over the country so I don't want something brand new to worry about, but I do want something I can at least enjoy driving.

Thanks a lot!

Jeff