We handed in our ballots at the close of business on Friday, rating each entry on a scale of 1 to 100. 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. 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. Our dragnet yielded 15 voters with a total of 304 years misspent in the business of writing about cars. 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. We collected this group of machines at our winding-back-roads testing hideaway near our Ann Arbor world headquarters. 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. Therefore, they were not invited again this year. Those vehicles that were not 10Best incumbents and were not changed for this year had already been examined by us once before. 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. The continued shift toward trucks, especially SUVs, has tended to increase average vehicle prices as well.Īll told, there were about 175 vehicles that met the qualifications outlined above. 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.
As a result, our price cap climbed from ’98’s $55,000 to $59,000. 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. 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. 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. 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. As much as we like Lingenfelter Corvettes, RENNTech Mercedes, and clandestinely imported Lotus Elises, such boutique models need not apply. First, it must be a regular production vehicle sold through normal channels, at least somewhere within the 50 United States.
But before getting into the details of the winners, let’s review the process by which they were selected.Īs usual, our competition is open to any car, pickup truck, sport-utility vehicle, or van provided it meets the following criteria. Although a record six new cars muscled their way onto our list last year, there were only two new faces for 1999. Beatific calm often sets in after a period of tumultuous change, and that’s exactly what happened at our 17th Annual 10Best cars competition.
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