I'm 6'5" and pretty leggy. My Dad isn't that tall, but has a very long torso - on a lot of sunroofed cars, his head would literally stick out an inch or so. Even our 2013 Passat is a tad tighter on legroom than I would like, but it works with the DSG . . . I have not sat in a manual to know on that one. My wife used to have a Crossfire (traded in on the Passat) and if I ever had to ride in it, it likely resembled a butterfly coming out of a cocoon watching me try to contort my way out of that damn thing . . . About the only cars I have ever found to have more legroom than I need werethe old 200/300 series Mercedes . . . And body size seems to almost never be an accurate indicator of what to expect.
And yes, air travel is pretty much agony . . .
Sure was fun driving the sales tards nutty when we shopped for a car as a family. Very often they would have nothing that fit on the entire lot . . .
- Tim