The Familial and Frugal: The Top Five

You'd think that just gathering up and comparing 10 hugely popular mainstream sedans would be interesting enough without needing to resort to cheesy automotive metaphors. But when metaphors fall into your lap, they shouldn't go to waste. It's my understanding that there are children in India starving for metaphors. Or maybe it's Africa. Well, Africa is like India.

Anyhow, a cheesy metaphor I can't bear to waste relates to efficiency: In the Tehachapi hills, east of Mojave, our real-world drive route took us up among vast stands of sequoia-tall windmills. Hundreds and hundreds of them. Big ones, smaller ones, all of them fascinating, though, apparently, if you stare at them too long, their monotonous twirling can put you under some type of spell. There are terrifying signs of it among the residents of Tehachapi-they stop at stop signs, use their turn signals, smile at you. Creepy. Hope it doesn't spread to L.A.

Metaphor? The participants of our 10-sedan caravan were universally powered by their more efficient, smaller four-banger engines, instead of their lustier but gas-grogging V-6s. Not only does this base-engine belt-tightening drop our fleet's typical price by about two grand, or nine percent (almost 11 grand in the case of the Passat's pricey VR6), but it ratchets up their all-important mileage by an average 11 percent.

Another metaphor (the last, we hope) relates to our photo location, the classic horse-racing mecca of Santa Anita. What's the sport of kings got to do with cars of the masses? High stakes, baby. If you add up the sales of all 10 of these cars, they account for about 8.5 percent of the entire American car and truck market. That's something like $9.3 billion. Makes horse racing look like an evening watching "Baby Einstein."

As I said, we tested the bejezzers out of 10 sedans-Chevrolet Malibu, Dodge Avenger, Ford Fusion, Honda Accord, Hyundai Sonata, Kia Optima, Nissan Altima, Mitsubishi Galant, Toyota Camry, and Volkswagen Passat. But unless you happen to be hot-to-trot "in market" and are perched on the edge of your seat right now, the Michener-scale tome we'd need to convey all this would make your eyes bleed. Not wanting that, we've divided and conquered by highlighting the group's cream of the crop -- our favorite five -- while BY CLICKING HERE you'll find individual reviews of the whole gang, plus some added information that might come in handy if you're actually in a buying mood.