Enormous generalization alert: mid-range cars with standard (manual) transmissions *in general* will be better maintained than those with automatics, simply because people who tend to drive standard know and care more about cars than people who can’t or won’t. And be sensible; a manual Civic with all that stupid boy-racer junk tacked on and blapping through a fart-can muffler isn’t what you want. I’d avoid lower-end cars of any kind because they typically aren’t cared for much at all. One of my cars is a 1991 Volvo 240 5-speed manual in pretty excellent shape because the original owner was very meticulous about maintenance. Guys who drive stick are generally “car guys” and take care of their wheels.
Obviously the little-ol’-lady 1994 Camry automatic with 34,000 miles on it is worth a look too, though that’s what I bought from my mom this spring and it needed about $1,500 in service: complete flush and fill of all fluids, tires, timing belt, etc. just because it’d barely been driven since about 2001. Still, this is essentially a 16-year-old new car. No you can’t have it!