The Top Ten Autos of 2005

By: Dylan Miles

Each year experts in the automobile industry come up with their
lists of the top ten vehicles of the year. Some experts put the
vehicles through a series of tests, while others create their
lists purely on market and consumer response. Vehicle choice is
certainly a personal one, but experts like Cars.com, Consumer
Reports magazine, Automobile magazine, and Car and Driver
magazine, are certainly worth listening to. What did they have
to say this year?

Well, the Cars.com list of most popular vehicles in 2005 was
topped by the Honda Civic. Cars.com analyzes the vehicular
market to come up with the most popular new car models based on
consumer interest (i.e. on the number of email requests for
price quotes sent to dealers) and not car tests. Here's their
top ten list for 2005:

1. Honda Civic 2. Honda Accord 3. Toyota Corolla 4. Honda
Odyssey 5. Toyota Camry 6. Toyota Prius 7. Toyota Sienna 8.
Honda CR-V 9. Toyota Highlander 10. Toyota Tacoma

The Consumer Reports magazine list was also topped by a Honda,
only this time it was a Honda Accord Hybrid, but the method of
choosing the top cars is very different. Consumer Reports
magazine took 200 vehicles and put them through 45 tests. At the
end they chose the top cars according to nine categories. For
example, the Subaru Forester was the best "Small SUV", the Lexus
RX330 was the best "Midsized SUV", the Lexus LS430 was the best
luxury sedan, the Subaru Impreza was the "most fun to drive",
and the Toyota Prius was the best "green car." Meanwhile,
Automobile magazine chooses the top vehicles in 13 different
performance categories, such as, Coupe, Family Car, Luxury
Sedan, Minivan, Pickup, Small car, Sports car, Sport sedan,
amongst others. They come up with one "ultimate vehicle" and
this year it was the Chrysler 300C.

According to Car and Driver magazine, the Chevrolet Corvette
topped the list as a best "performance car" and the Ford Mustang
was the best "muscle car".

About the author:
Dylan Miles, journalist, and website builder, lives in Texas. He
is the owner and co-editor of http://www.autocarplanet.com on
which you will find a longer, more detailed version of this
article.