The first one I bought myself was a Minolta XG-1 when I was at uni. I was co-ordinating a youth club in a run-down area, and we needed evidence to show the local council and various sponsors to illustrate what we were doing. I bought the camera with about 110 GBP that took me a while to save up for that. I bought it without any desire for equipment beyond wanting something to do the necessary job well. A local used store sold it to me, after I asked their advice for the best I could get with the money I had saved, with a Sigma medium zoom lens.
It didn't take me long to really enjoy the results that could be had, and the feel of the manual focus as it glided into the best shot with that split prism finder was a joy. About ten years later, something went wrong with it, I can't remember. It was probably my fault, messing about one day. Maybe it wouldn't fire. This was after I took part in the Manual Minolta XG-1 Around the World project (Google it, it was fun), and I had a lot of affection for that camera because of the results it consistently yielded.
A young photojournalism student was couchsurfing his way around Japan, where I live, and I when he was at my place for a few days I gave him that camera as he said he would be able to get it fixed and would love to use it.
Man, I liked that camera. I hope the kid got it fixed and is using it!