Best of 2007: Rumble Seat
Smart Fortwo
Upside: Cute? Oh my God, yes. It couldn’t be any cuter if it were buried up to its neck in kittens.
Downside: In my short time in the Fortwo, I adopted the kind of hyper-vigilance/paranoia I usually reserve for riding motorcycles. The religiously minded may consider investing in icons of the plastic dashboard-mounted variety. Know thyself. -- Dan Neil (AFP / Getty Images)
Smart Fortwo tops the high-tech and high-end autos Times readers liked the best.
BMW 335i Coupe
Upside: What Partagas is to cigars and Fender is to guitars, so BMW is to cars.
Downside: This is not the handsomest coupe on the market but it’s certainly presentable for class reunions and business meetings. -- Dan Neil (Stephen Osman / Los Angeles Times)
Jaguar XKR
Upside: It was strange, really, to walk out to the garage and find people gathered around the XKR in twos and threes, murmuring and bright-eyed, as if they were warming themselves beside some sacred campfire of automotive culture.
Downside: The XKR’s interior decor is perfectly functional -- but not particularly gracious or satisfying. -- Dan Neil (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times)
Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano
Upside: Gonzo fast, awesomely cool, harder than Simon Cowell’s heart yet with a deep sense of owner preservation, the 599 reminds me that I don’t want much in a car, as long as I can have everything.
Downside: Wait. Did I say $320,000 was the price as tested? Yup. -- Dan Neil (Don Kelsen / Los Angeles Times)
Quattroporte Automatica
Upside: This effortlessly gorgeous hunk of Italian swank, this sinister spark from coachbuilder Pininfarina’s grinding wheel, ignites envy and major car-jealousy wherever it lands.
Downside: The nav system is CD-based, not DVD-based, and it feels really primitive compared with the class of the field. QP drivers will forgo the pleasures of iPod and Bluetooth. There is no smart-key available, no power trunk closure, no road-following headlamps. -- Dan Neil (Don Bartletti/ Los Angeles Times)
Nissan Versa and Chevrolet Aveo
Upside: Both are, I discovered, pretty endearing little cars. To drive them is to benchmark how far cheap transportation has come since the days of the death-wishful Ford Aspire and Chevy Celebrity.
Downside:These cars have the erotic charge of abstinence-based education, the epicurean frisson of room-temperature tofu. (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)
