But the answer to this question is extremely well known across the internet and every thread that comes up will eventually boil down to the same two responses: Toyota and Honda as 1 and 1a.
There isn’t some secret answer to find, those are just the answers. People will definitely come up with anecdotes supporting various other cars, but as these threads hit a certain mass of replies they invariably boil down to those two choices.
They are not the flashiest cars, nor the most feature rich, nor the most efficient or most powerful. But if you want to buy a car that will just keep on running after years of minimal maintenance, often even after being abused during that time, a Toyota or Honda is what you should buy.