Oh, and for me character is the same as soul.
Character is what keeps you interested in the car.
Character has nothing to do with irritating faults. Character is the way it drives, the way it makes you feel, the reason why you would never sell it, for anything.
Character cannot be named. It cannot be said "I fixed that rattle and my heater works again now, suddenly my car has no character"
Popele who say that character is rattles and a faulty demister have absolutely no comprehension of character.
Almost no modern vehicle has character, mainly because the hard edges are filed off during the design process. A hard suspension is softened, but not too much, a notchy gear change is made more slippery, but not too much, nervous steering is softened, but not too much and so on, and so on, until the car is merely a mish-mash of what the designers think everybody wants.
Character only exists in modern cars where the designers have decided their target, made the car and left it at that or someone has built character into the car by changing what the designers made.
If someone told me their Elise had character, I could accept that, if merlin told me his 'teg had character, I'd accept that, but if someone told me that an "off the shelf" 530d had character, I'd probably wet myself laughing.
