Beatific calm often sets in after a period of tumultuous change, and that's
exactly what happened at our 17th Annual 10Best cars competition. Although a
record six new cars muscled their way onto our list last year, there were only
two new faces for 1999. But before getting into the details of the winners,
let's review the process by which they were selected.
As usual, our competition is open to any car, pickup truck, sport-utility
vehicle, or van provided it meets the following criteria. First, it must be a
regular production vehicle sold through normal channels, at least somewhere
within the 50 United States. As much as we like Lingenfelter Corvettes, RENNTech
Mercedes, and clandestinely imported Lotus Elises, such boutique models need not
apply. Any nominee must also be for sale, or "in the stream of
commerce," as the Washington legal types like to say, by the end of January
1999.
We also insist that our vehicles fall under a price cap to make sure that our
list of winners isn't heavily weighted toward machines that carry house-size
prices. We calculate our price cap by taking the average new-vehicle transaction
price, as determined by a survey of the National Automobile Dealers Association,
and multiplying it by two and a half. As of the middle of last summer, that NADA
figure was $23,500, quite a bit higher than last year's figure of $21,750. As a
result, our price cap climbed from '98's $55,000 to $59,000. In a year marked by
very little inflation in new-car prices, this increase reflects the strong
economy in which flush buyers are selecting ever more lavish and loaded
vehicles. The continued shift toward trucks, especially SUVs, has tended to
increase average vehicle prices as well.
All told, there were about 175 vehicles that met the qualifications outlined
above. To whittle this number down to a more manageable list, we only nominated
vehicles that are new or significantly upgraded for 1999, in addition to the
vehicles that won places on last year's 10Best list. Those vehicles that were
not 10Best incumbents and were not changed for this year had already been
examined by us once before. Therefore, they were not invited again this year.
After attending the summer's round of new-vehicle introductions, dutifully
studying our press kits, and browsing the various automotive Web sites, we ended
up with 55 nominees.
We collected this group of machines at our winding-back-roads testing
hideaway near our Ann Arbor world headquarters. We then summoned every road
tester from this office as well as our far-flung operatives from Redondo Beach,
California; Sedona, Arizona; Wyoming, New York; London, England; and Villa BS,
Italy. Our dragnet yielded 15 voters with a total of 304 years misspent in the
business of writing about cars. For the entire fourth week of September, this
crew drove our 55 nominees over the winding roads, country byways, and various
freeways that surround and lead to 10Best central. Furthermore, we poked under
the vehicles' hoods, evaluated their back seats, and examined their construction
details, so that we could better champion our favorites during the various
pasta-and-vino-fueled meetings that punctuated the week.
We handed in our ballots at the close of business on Friday, rating each
entry on a scale of 1 to 100. Behold the 10 superb vehicles with the highest
average scores.
