[vlocci]

HELP!

I'm in need of a car for my wife to leave at our beach house and am looking for suggestions. It will see less than 1K a year as it is a small island and we have my Defender 110 for hauling the family around. Needs to traverse a decently maintained mile long dirt road to and from the house. No manual trans as she simply doesn't want to deal with it. This is for running errands and into and out of town trips. Kinda-sorta reliable would be nice, but I'm happy to fix what breaks

Criteria:
-<12K purchase price
-Short wheelbase for easy parking
-automatic trans
-able to fit a pair of child seats in the back

A Jeep Wrangler fits all the criteria, but is pretty generic. I'm toying with increasing the ride height on a salvage title 996 C2 that has been in the back of my shop for a year as something cool but getting to the rear seats with kids seats is annoying.

Early bronco is out of my budget, and the land rover defender 90 market is equally hot and trucks at this price point are junk.

What am I overlooking that is not a boring appliance of a vehicle?

Vin