Help
In all, they hosted a total of 58 automobiles at a secret base hidden amid the farm plots of southeast Michigan. They flogged the cars for a week over our long-standing route, which serves up everything from smooth curves to pockmarked apexes to first-gear corners to high-speed straights to elevation changes.
Nominees consist of all-new cars, 2010 10Best winners, cars that were not available for the 2010 competition, and those with significant updates. All cars must fall under the base-price cap of $80,000 and be on sale in January 2011.
2011 Ford Mustang GT
Ponyboy, going gold.
The GT is the ideal blend of performance and value, serving up brutal muscle, daily usability, and the agility of an honest-to-Edsel sports coupe at an eminently fair $30,495.
2011 BMW 3-series / M3
This year marks the 3-series’ 20th consecutive 10Best win, a feat unmatched by any other vehicle on the market. The chassis balance is exquisite, with handling that encourages risky behavior but a ride that you wouldn’t feel bad subjecting your grandma to. The fluid steering weights up just right, the brake pedal bypasses the soles of your shoes and goes straight to your brain, and the manual transmission—should you be wise enough to specify it—boasts a shifter that knows its way effortlessly from gear to gear. Plus, all the 3-series’ goodness is available in coupe, convertible, sedan, and even station-wagon forms. Engine choices are a silky inline-six; powerful, turbocharged inline-sixes; and the M3’s screaming, 8400-rpm V-8.
2011 Cadillac CTS-V
In forsaking the mainstream CTSs, they are saying yes to psychedelic power, yes to organ-shifting g-forces, yes to the great, mind-expanding duality of Cadillacs that make the 0-to-60 sprint about as fast as a Ferrari 599. You’re left marveling at the courage of the thing: Did GM just create a 556-hp wagon? Did you ever think you’d see the day?
2011 Chevrolet Volt
To put it simply, the Chevy Volt was far and away the biggest surprise to every editor at this year’s 10Best event. None imagined that nestling into the glass cockpit would bring the words “automotive bliss” and “electric vehicle” together in the same sentence. The smooth-riding Volt can’t shred tarmac like a VW GTI or infuse fun into the family-sedan segment like a Honda Accord or a Hyundai Sonata.
2011 Honda Accord
The current Accord sedan, the eighth generation of the company’s bestselling midliner, has a few flaws. It isn’t as frisky and playful as its predecessor, and it looks a touch homely, especially parked next to a Hyundai Sonata. But flaws don’t equal failure: The Accord remains inscrutably excellent. It manages to combine all the practical virtues you need in a family sedan—plenty of ¬interior space, lots of available infotainment and trim choices, a quiet and relaxed ride, subdued engines, and effortless transmissions—with a fluid chassis that urges a driver to wring it out on back roads and off-ramps. The optional V-6 engine is one of the best of its breed, but the Accord becomes quite pricey when loaded with options such as a navigation system.
2011 Honda Fit
We’re equally zinged by this Honda’s upscale interior, its quick and precise steering, an engaging shifter, spot-on ergonomics, a windshield as big as a minivan’s, and a rear seat that is both adult-habitable and drops to the floor faster than a Marine pumping push-ups. All of the foregoing, plus an observed 34 mpg. Although it’s close, the Fit isn’t perfectly fit. Its 197-foot ¬braking distance is substandard, the front seat’s lumbar support is too aggressive, and the air conditioning strains to keep up with the solar load caused by all that glass. Nonetheless, the Fit offers a fun-to-drive quotient that proves basic transportation isn’t always basic.
2011 Hyundai Sonata
Being that it is at the heart of new-car sales volume, the mid-size family sedan must delicately balance its attributes to appeal to hundreds of thousands of disparate car buyers. This sixth-gen Sonata offers the most standard horsepower in its class, with the segment’s first direct-injection four-cylinder, and it gets the top EPA highway rating of 35 mpg. The optional and very responsive turbo four introduces the category to the downsizing concept: It makes more power than competitors’ V-6s and achieves far better fuel-economy ratings, too. The swooping shape makes the Sonata best-in-class attractive, but it doesn’t sacrifice on the very reasonably sized back seat and generous trunk. Despite having the lowest base price in its segment, the Sonata packs standard six-speed transmissions. And a high-quality interior.
2011 Mazda MX-5 Miata
Easy to live with, easy to race, easy to love.
“On any weekend, more racers are driving Mazdas than any other brand”. That’s a big claim, but this little roadster makes it credible. The Miata is a favorite with amateur racers for essentially the same reasons it’s perennially popular as a road car: affordability, low curb weight, high agility.
2011 Volkswagen Golf / GTI
Everyday excellence.
Even the entry-level Golf continues to offer hatchback practicality, refined driving dynamics, and luxury-car levels of interior quality. It’s the master of a budget-conscious segment whose other entrants ask buyers to compromise on refinement, fun, or both. The Golf’s inline-five engine looks weak on paper, but its copious torque moves the car without much effort. Think of it as a mini-Mercedes, and you won’t be far off.
2011 Porsche Boxster / Cayman
The baby Porsche is secretly the better Porsche.
Enthusiasts know that the Boxster and the Cayman are blessed with a mechanical arrangement that yields better driving dynamics than the rear-engined 911. In a lineup whose purity is diluted by the brisk-selling Cayenne and Panamera, the Cayman and the Boxster still exemplify, even heighten, classic Porsche values such as a flat-six's raspy purr, steering that's telepathic, and brakes that can almost stop the Earth's rotation. Raw performance numbers are impressive in either standard or S trim, but behind the wheel of a Boxster or a Cayman, you forget the numbers and simply enjoy the connection to the road. Nowhere is this more true than in the Boxster Spyder, a car barely quicker and a bit less useful than the standard Boxster but even more vivacious. That's why we named it the best-handling car in America for less than $100,000. We're surprised that, in a world of endless 3-series and Accord clones, no automaker has tried to copy the little Porsche's formula. But we aren't surprised that the Boxster and the Cayman are on this list again.
