At our 2007 10Best competition, we calculated that the average U.S. transaction price for a new car was $28,400. That was the average. So you wouldn’t expect you could slice $8400 from that sum and still be rewarded with a full measure of vehicular va-va-voom. Tell the bartender you want to deduct a buck from your next draft beer, and all you’ll get is foam, right?
It used to be that the bottom feeders inhabiting this niche were plasticky and good for about three years’ worth of hard daily use. They were the cars you’d get when you told the rent-a-car clerk, “I’ll take whatever’s cheapest,” an utterance you’d regret about a mile from the airport.
But you know what? The sub-$20,000 category is nowadays populated by some alluring characters, and they aren’t all as slow as politicians doing math. Consider: The average 0-to-60-mph sprint in this 10-car group consumes only 7.4 seconds. That’s just a 10th behind, say, a Saturn Sky roadster.
To make the cut, contestants must boast a base price at or below $20,000 and must be available in showrooms throughout the bulk of calendar-year 2007. Production cars only—no aftermarket specials, although tuners aplenty exist, should you desire more puissance. If two cars post identical 0-to-60 dashes, then the car with the quicker quarter-mile sprint gets the nod. If they’re still tied, then the winner is the car that first reaches 100 mph, then 110 mph, and so forth. Simple. Like us.
We know it’s unlikely that any of these 10 will draw the sort of attention that causes parking valets to bump you to the head of the queue. But neither will they draw attention from the constabulary or from your insurance agent.
There’s a Zen-like purity in that.
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