#2011

Offering everything from the Accent subcompact to the Equus large luxury sedan, Hyundai covers a lot of territory. With gas, turbo, and hybrid engines, and basic, sporty, and luxury trims, the Sonata stakes out much of the midrange sedan segment. Which leaves Kia and its new Optima midsize sedan…where? Mercury to Hyundai’s Ford? Not if Kia and chief design officer Peter Schreyer (of Audi TT fame) can help it.

Toyota has had a problem lately: aging clientele. While some marketing firms will try to reinvigorate an aging brand with flashy new commercials and risqué advertising campaigns, Toyota decided to create a whole new brand in 2002 targeting Generation X and Y: Scion. Since the generations at the end of the alphabet are short on cash but long on youth, value pricing is the biggest draw for the Scion brand. Therefore it should be no surprise that the average age of Scion shoppers isn’t as low as Toyota could have hoped: old people like a bargain too.

The relationship between automotive writers and manufacturers is based on trust in the basic fairness (or pliability) of the writer, and usually it’s incumbent upon the writer to establish their reliability before being trusted with a week-long tester. What many PR types and press fleet managers don’t seem to understand is that allowing even the snarkiest writer to actually spend time with a product actually helps create a more even-handed review than might result from a brief encounter.

Such was certainly the case with the 2011 Kia Sportage EX. My initial reaction was “boy is this thing cheap,” and had I spent only a day in the car, that would have been my major conclusion. The fact that two days earlier I had to turn in a $70,000 Jaguar XF Supercharged certainly reinforced that initial impression. And after a week with the Sportage I still think it pegs the cheepnis meter, so it’s a cheap car… but it’s an honest cheap car that delivers some real value.

Panthers get a lot of love here at TTAC, but my automotive soft spot is actually for big, softly sprung front-drive sedans. When I bought a brand-new Chrysler LHS back in 2000, I probably single-handedly dropped the average age of the LHS buyer by double digits. I can’t say exactly what the attraction was, but there’s something pleasing about wafting around in a big, smooth sedan with just enough get-up-and-go. Around the same time as Chrysler attacked the large front driver market with the LH platform, Toyota was getting into the full-size arena with the Avalon.

But, just as the LHS tended to live in the shadow of the 300M, Toyota’s full-size model has always suffered from its little brother’s success: the Avalon never stood out enough to tempt buyers away from the (none too cramped) Camry and its smaller price tag. Now, tackling Buick, Ford and Hyundai rather than Chrysler for the large FWD sedan market, Toyota has given the Avalon a thorough going-over with the goal of distancing the near-luxo-barge from its mass-market cousin. But will this makeover help the “forgotten Toyota” reclaim some spotlight?

With the 2007 model year introduction of the CX-7, Mazda arrived late to the compact crossover party. And when you arrive late, you’d better bring something special. To this end, the CX-7 combined swoopy styling and a standard turbocharged engine, making it arguably the sportiest offering in the segment. After an initial burst, during which everyone who really wanted one bought one, sales have been modest. In a bid to broaden the CX-7s appeal, Mazda added a non-turbocharged four as part of a 2010 refresh. But if you take away one of the few things that made the CX-7 special, is there any reason to buy one?

“The next 24 months will be tough for us,” said Soh Weiming, Volkswagen’s company’s executive president for China, to Bloomberg. Is Volkswagen running scared in China? Will the bubble finally burst? Soh Weiming is worried.

Data coming in from their 8,900 reporting dealers throughout the United States prompt J.D. Power to predict a strong new car December. “It appears that 2010 will end on a high note,” said Jeff Schuster, executive director of global forecasting at J.D. Power and Associates.

Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Audi are all parts of huge organizations with vast resources. When developing a new flagship sedan, they can finesse every last detail. (Whether they actually do so is another matter.) Though previously owned by Ford and now owned by Indian conglomerate Tata, Jaguar has had to make do with so much less that it’s almost a miracle it can field a contemporary large luxury sedan at all. And yet we have the new XJ.

Though an upcoming 429-horsepower 5.0-liter V8 might suggest otherwise, Hyundai intends to lead the industry in fuel economy. As recently as 2005 this would have seemed a pipe dream. That year’s Hyundai Sonata automatic managed fuel economy ratings of only 19/27 MPG from the EPA (2008+ system), well below the 21/31 achieved by the Honda Accord and Toyota Camry. The 2011 Sonata does far better: 22/35. But the glory, of course, goes to hybrids, and so the Sonata will soon be available in hybrid form. The projected EPA numbers: 36/40. Is Toyota’s hybrid leadership in danger?

Styling changes at GM seem to either come either in questionable radical leaps like the Pontiac Aztec, or creep glacially by, and GM’s 2500HD trucks definitely fit into the latter category. Despite being fully redesigned in 2007 as a 2008 model year truck and gaining a “full mid-cycle refresh” for the 2010 model year, the 2500HD is undeniably a GM truck. That means you get basic slab sides, a large square maw and the same sort of styling creases in the sheet metal that everything else from GM wears.

Ten years ago I would never have considered comparing a Lincoln to a Lexus, but times change and with Lincoln heading up market with their latest product refreshes and Lexus searching for their soul in the mass market, the stars have finally aligned. And nothing out of Detroit strikes so closely the heart of the Japanese competition as the Lincoln MKZ Hybrid. After all, reliable entry-level luxury and hybrid tech are two things the Japanese mastered long before anyone else. Is it possible for an American company to beat Lexus at their own game?

Just two years ago the $40,000 Genesis was an audacious step upmarket for Hyundai. Tepid sales of the semi-premium line suggest that the market still isn’t quite ready for an expensive car from Korea. And yet, for 2011, the company is attempting an even larger leap with the $58,900 Equus ($65,400 in Ultimate trim). This is territory into which even storied manufacturers like Cadillac and Lincoln fear to tread (with cars at least). Does Hyundai’s large premium sedan come close enough to established competitors, while undercutting them enough in price, that potential buyers will overlook the badge? Or is it a step too far too soon destined to sell in very small numbers?

The Korean word for ‘five’ sounds like “oh,” as in, “Oh, Snap!” or “OMG.” So in Korea, that makes Kia’s new K5 a “K.O.,” at least in name. But does Kia’s new Camccord fighter actually land a knockout on the all-important D-Segment, or is it a mere win by decision?