10 Best Cars
This year marks our 24th-annual 10Best Cars competition, and we've conducted the past 20 or so of these events at the same rural site about 30 miles west of our home office in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Over the years we've grown used to seeing camouflaged new models and convoys of competitive vehicle sets cruising around on these roads. But during this year's test week, we saw something new.
In two different locations, half of the two-lane country road was blocked off for a few hundred yards. Within the coned-off area, technicians from an unknown Japanese car company were using sophisticated instruments to measure the road surface so they could build a duplicate section of that pavement at their home proving grounds.
We've always known that these roads, with their combination of heavy crowns and less-than-glassy-smooth pavement arranged in variegated twists and turns, provide a challenging test of any vehicle's road manners and control responses, but it's nice to see others have independently come to the same conclusion.
Having such demanding roads is tremendously helpful to us because the task of winnowing the 10Best Cars from the dozens of terrific new models remains as tough as ever.
For 2006, we were presented with a brace of affordable roadsters in the form of an all-new Mazda MX-5 and the eagerly awaited Pontiac Solstice. The new Ford Fusion and the comprehensively redesigned Hyundai Sonata and Volkswagen Passat took on the returning 19-time 10Best-winning Honda Accord, which came reinforced with a fresh face lift.
It was also a big year for V-8 sedans from Detroit, with the new Buick Lucerne, the Cadillac DTS, the Dodge Charger, which is already available with the high-output Hemi in SRT8 guise, and the Chevy Impala SS and Pontiac Grand Prix GXP, which are now available with the latest iteration of the venerable small-block Chevy V-8, complete with cylinder-shutdown systems.
Our rules for inclusion in the 2006 10Best competition are essentially unchanged from last year's. We automatically invite the 2005 winners back and sift through our automotive database to identify other cars that are all-new or significantly upgraded for 2006. Cars we've considered in previous years don't get invited back until they meet our redesign threshold.
Otherwise, all nominees must also have a base price no higher than $71,000. This is 2.5 times the average new-vehicle transaction price as of August 2005. Eligible cars must also be promised for sale no later than January 2006, and the manufacturer must deliver an example to us for our evaluations. Vaporware, in other words, need not apply.
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