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The Best and Worst of 2007

Another year wraps up, and it's time for a little introspection and soul

Everyone around here's got a favorite, so read on to find out who picked what. (Photo: Justin Couture, American Auto Press)

searching to make a few judgments about the cars that we drove this year. A few stood out as exceptional in everyones' eyes, and they are generally cars you will see coming up on a lot of Car of the Year lists for a wide variety of reasons. From Audi's stunning new R8 supercar or Luxus' technologically dominant LS 600h L, a true hybrid flagship, right down to the new smart fortwo, which is set to go on sale in the United States for the first time. Big cars and small cars were both making big statements. However, this year also marked the arrival of some very important midsize sedans, from the proletarian Chevrolet Malibu and Honda Accord to the upper crust Mercedes-Benz C-Class and Cadillac CTS. But sometimes, you just have to throw practicality out the window and have some fun. These choices, by many of our regular writers, are simply the cars that stuck in our minds for one reason or another, mostly good but we had to warn you about a few big disappointments that crossed our paths.

Without any further ado, our top picks of 2007:

Jonathan Yarkony
Favorite Car: Okay, this may not have been the freshest daisy in the automotive world this year, but for some demonic reason, the Jeep

Jon fell in love with the baddest Jeep, the 6.1-liter, HEMI-powered Grand Cherokee SRT8. (Photo: Jonathan Yarkony, American Auto Press)

Grand Cherokee SRT8 is still stuck in my craw, tickling the back of my mind. I may have driven 'better' cars this year, and I didn't go on any SRT track events or drag race it at the local strip, but I did get it out to an autocross event and drove the wheels off it, and even went head to head with an S6 (give the nod to the Jeep by about a bumper on an unofficial 0-100 run) that a fellow journalist had in his possession. Speaking of possession, that about sums up my week with the SRT8, in which I was consumed by devilish impulses that I simply could not control. Never before have I felt so dirty and so good in a car. But take away my license-endangering behavior and you have a very practical AWD vehicle that can seat five, carry a family's worth of crap and double your fuel bill before you can say 6.1L Hemi V8 (and no, it doesn't feature cylinder deactivation). It outperforms vehicles twice its price and then some. It just rocks.

Honorable Mentions: Jaguar XKR (it doesn't get any better than feeling like a movie star rolling around in the most beautiful Jaguar in decades); Acura MDX (best normal SUV on the market - as opposed

Significantly less love was given to Saturn's midsize hybrid, the Aura Green Line. (Photo: Justin Couture, American Auto Press)

to the supernormal Jeep); Mazda RX-8 with Mazdaspeed performance accessories (one of the best sports cars on the market, and practical to boot, plus the Mazdaspeed exhaust adds aural punch); Cadillac CTS (one of the best looking cars on the market at a reasonably attainable price; also happens to be a great car).

Worst Car: I had really hard time picking a car to designate with this unwelcome attention, but after being so thoroughly impressed with a regular Saturn Aura that the Aura Green Line was a colossal disappointment. Considering the fuel consumption just doesn't even come close to competitive models, its only justification was its price, which, like the entire car, was cheap. With government discounts and tax rebates, you might be able to get one for the price of a base Aura XE, but the irritating lurch and grumble on every start-up after stoplight idle is inexcusable, and the entire powertrain is sluggish and noisy, graced by an interior that seems to have been stripped down and downgraded from previous Auras that I've seen.

Favorite Event: Audi R8 day at Mosport in Bowmanville, Ontario

Favorite Stories: Audi R8 and Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT8

Adam Allen
Favorite Car: When I was posed this question, I thought about making my

The 335i could very well be the best-balanced sports sedan, a reason why Adam picked it as his favorite. (Photo: Steven James Day, American Auto Press)

choice something quirky and a little off the beaten path as my colleague Justin Couture might do. He gives little more than a second glance to cars that send my pulse racing, like high performance sports cars. It's not that he doesn't like cars in that vein, it's just that he's having more fun trying to get the best fuel economy from a microcar. My choice is actually quite easy, because I can't think of a car that is more of a complete package than the BMW 335i sedan with a manual transmission. It simply excels at everything it does. It's equally at home making you feel like a hero on your favorite back road as it is transporting you and your guests on a night out. It may not be a hyper exotic or a quirky fuel economy champ, but it gets the nod for my favorite car of 2007.

Honorable Mentions: BMW 535i, Audi R8, Mini Cooper S

Worst Car: I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people

It may look sporty and sound sporty, but the Camry is not a sporty car. (Photo: Justin Couture, American Auto Press)

didn't like my choice for worst car simply because there are so many out there. The car I bestow with this dubious title is the Toyota Camry SE 4-cylinder with a manual gearbox. Don't get me wrong; I was looking forward to driving it. Finally, a little sport baked into Toyota's standard issue vanilla cake, I thought. The results were half-baked. The gearbox and the engine had more issues with each other than Britney and K-Fed, neither suiting the other. The suspension was soft and the quality seems to have slipped off. The final blow? It just wasn't sporty. I was just as surprised as you might be. Perhaps this is a bit harsh as the Camry is a good midsize car. This one just let me down.

Favorite Stories: Porsche Cayenne S, Chevy HHR Panel Van

Favorite Event: It'd have to be the 2007 North American International Auto Show. The atmosphere, the concepts, and the chance to be right there at the reveal of so many new and important cars.

Steven James Day
Favorite Car: The 19th letter of the alphabet, R, has seen its fair share of

Audi bowls a strike, hits a grand slam and gets a hole in one all on its first try with the R8, Steven's best car for '07. (Photo: Justin Couture, American Auto Press)

use in automotive related nomenclature - R does stand for racing after all. When paired with the number 8 it meant a lot to those of us who follow top tier sports car racing as the pinnacle of Audi's Le Mans program. 2007 was the year that Audi officially launched their first sports car in the company's history (sorry TT), and what a car it was. R8 suddenly meant a lot more to a lot more people. To drive one around was to endure parking lot crowds, countless cell phone camera picture takings, as well as waving, yelling and many a thumbs up from all manner of people in all walks of life. To really drive one was truly sublime, as the R8 makes just about any driver look like Allan McNish.

Sure it doesn't quite have the cachet of a Ferrari and it's not as fast as the significantly less expensive Z06, but I'd take one over just about any Porsche 911 or the Aston Martin Vantage. It suits my driving style... who doesn't love the idea of an everyday supercar? I'm not exactly an extrovert so I wouldn't say it speaks to that side of my personality, but hey I'm willing to live with it. So top of my list, and I am sure everyone else's, is the Audi R8.

The '07 Wrangler Unlimited Rubicon enters Steven's list with a splash. (Photo: Steven James Day, American Auto Press)

Honorable mentions: As good of a car BMW's 3-series has always been they've always been a bit slow, M3 aside, in the go department. Sure they made up for it in the handling department, but faced with competition producing more horsepower, BMW finally reached deep back into their bag of tricks and pulled out not one but two turbochargers to create the fantastic 300+horsepower inline 6 that resides under the hood of the 335i. A fantastic sports sedan from the company that invented the genre. Just add a true mechanical limited slip to the option list please.

Jeep's Wrangler Rubicon was my only choice as a 4x4 to take the family away to the cottage up north for 6 days. Spending time on some really hardcore trails, treading lightly where 90-percent of sport utility vehicles couldn't go was fun beyond description as was taking my 6-year-old son off-roading for the first time. As good as the other Wrangler models are the Rubicon is the only one to get.

Showing up to an Autocross/Solo2 event in a lightly modified Mazda MX-5, pumping up the tire pressure

There's nothing more satisfying than wiping the floor in a competition, much like Steve did with this MX-5. (Photo: Steven James Day, American Auto Press)

and throwing on a helmet is a fantastic way to spend a Sunday. Going cone to cone with some much faster cars on stickier tires yet managing to finish 8th place overall out of 72 cars (I was the fastest car on street tires with a full interior) is what owning a MX-5 Miata has been about since the beginning, and is one of the reasons why I want one so badly. Driving home with my wife while the top is down to let the sunshine in is the other.

Worst car: In today's automotive marketplace I don't know if there is such thing as a “worst” car, although there are that turn out not to be as good as you first thought when you spend time with them or ones that aren't that great and only get worse. For me the most pointless vehicle I drove this year was the BMW X3. Although it handled surprisingly well, it was slow, small inside, very expensive, not the most attractive and had the worst shifter of any BMW I've ever driven. I'm not sure why this vehicle even exists.

Favorite Review: Audi S4 Cabriolet, Buick Enclave

Favorite Event: I didn't travel too much this past year but the one event that does stand out is the trip to Lake Louise to spend a

OK, we're all in agreement... the R8 is brilliant! (Photo: Trevor Hofmann, American Auto Press)

couple of days with the redesigned Kia Sorento. I was born in Saskatchewan, so anytime I return to the West it feels like home. Staying in wonderful Lake Louise and taking in some of the splendor this country has to offer will be with me for a while.

Russ Bond
Favorite Car: The best of 2007 .... gee, there's a tough pick ... sort of like shoveling snow all your life and then finding out there's something called a snowblower! No question, the best of the best, both past and present was the Audi R8 – in R tronic if you don't mind. I know, I know, the trunk space ... Who cares? I'll make multiple trips and love every one of them. Simply put, any car that makes you change the screensaver on your desktop has to be the best ... I have a silver one on mine.

Honorable mention: The R8 aside, there were some good rides in 2008 that deserve a mention. The Jaguar XKR Coupe flat rocked. Jag has it right with that one. Any SRT8 is the way American muscle should be, and the Mazdaspeed

We're also all in agreement that GM's new lineup of pickups is superb. (Photo: Steven James Day, American Auto Press)

cars were all fun. Again, the Porsches didn't make it down to my name on the list, so nothing to report there, but strangely enough, with all the fast iron that I'd normally put on the list, I really liked the GMC pickup I had for a week or two. The biggest surprise was the Mercedes-Benz E320 Bluetec. I still can't figure out how it was that fast, but it is.

Favorite Event: For me, again it's a no brainer. Of course, unlike Hofmann I don't have 30 to choose from, but of the few I did manage to do, taking part in an R8 ride and drive just rocked. I spent two glorious days in the car with my girlfriend, ending up in such wilderness I actually pondered that if I made a right turn somewhere and headed North, I wondered how long it would take them to actually find me? Finally, cooler heads prevailed, and we made it to our destination.

What's the worst

Russ... you're such a trickster. (Photo: Russ Bond, American Auto Press)

car for me (and keep in mind that I'm fairly choosy on what I drive)? I don't do minivans, and I like to say I have a 160bhp threshold for testers, so my “worst” is actually pretty good in mainstream terms, but for what I personally like ...uh, no thanks. In Portugal I had a Renault Clio. It defines blah, as in blah, blah, blah. Unexciting, rolls around like your ex-girlfriend trying to get up in the morning, and has zip in the way of power. It very nearly put me to sleep every time I drove it.

Favorite Story: The best story of the year involved CAP's Justin Couture. We both were at a local TT launch ... during a heavy snowstorm. After the event was done, somehow Couture managed to finagle the new TT roadster for a week, which meant he would be driving it back to his home. I had an A6 that I had drove up to the event. Anyhow, I came down to leave the hotel, and the valet said, “Vich car is urs Misure?” Jokingly I said, “What do you have?” “A TT and an eh6,” he said. “Mine's the TT ...” My plan was to snag Justin's TT – hey, I left him an A6 – and when he figured out that it was me, I'd meet him somewhere on the way back and give him his TT back. It didn't work out that way, but I gave the valet $20 to tell Justin I took his TT and let him stew over it for a few minutes while he searched for my cell phone. Sorry Justin, but next time ... have my cell phone number handy.

Favorite Story Take 2: I liked the “Gas it Up” story. I love hate mail, and on that one, I have enough to keep my fireplace going all winter ...

Justin Couture
Favorite Car: Every year I drive a lot of cars, so many in fact that I've lost

Justin picked the future as his favorite car. (Photo: Justin Couture, American Auto Press)

count this year. Almost all of the cars have been good, and quite a few great, but none stands out from the others much more than a little, white, right hand drive Kei car that isn't sold here. The Mitsubishi i simply won me over. It was probably the slowest car (with the smallest engine) of the lot, and might be the worst handling car and the weirdest that we've tested all year, but what it does is show the marvels of space-efficient engineering. This is, in my mind, the future of modern transport and believe me, in a way I'm looking forward to it.

Honorable Mentions: Audi R8 (super effort for Audi's first supercar); Jaguar XKR (adding a supercharger only made last year's favorite car even better); Volvo S80 V8 (smart, sexy, incredibly safe, and best of all, it's a Volvo); Cadillac CTS DI (it's heartwarming when a car company gets everything just right); Mini Cooper S (redesign kept all the good parts, made everything else better).

Worst Car: I don't think that there's such as thing as "worst car" for me this year, as well, pretty much everything is decent transportation. Instead,

Up close and personal with the 1L Concept car and many others made German TecDay Justin's favorite event. (Photo: Justin Couture, American Auto Press)

for me, what really grated my nerves was the Mazdaspeed3 I tested with Mazdaspeed performance accessories. The stainless steel cannon exhaust deafened me, the sports suspension's ride bludgeoned me, the torque steer tired me. After every drive, I was spent. The Mazdaspeed3 has many merits - it's incredibly quick, fast and very affordable, but for refinement and comfort, absolutely not! Perhaps the Mazdaspeed3 should instead get the award the Most Recalcitrant Car of 2007?

Favorite Event: German TecDay 2007, in San Francisco. Clever solutions for power, performance and the environment presented by intelligent German scientists with beards, and lots of intriguing European-only cars to test out. It was indeed a window into the future, and quite possibly the coolest and most informative day I've been to in the last year.

Favorite Stories: Although I wrote many articles this year, I don't think I really have just one favorite.

 

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