Top 5 Cars of 2k15

BMW M235i:

I once had a tail attached to the bottom of my spinal column. Don’t judge me; you had one, too. I lost mine a little more than a month into my embryonic development. And, I presume, you did as well. Not all of us lose ours, though. While vanishingly rare, some babies are born with an honest-to-goodness cartilage-, nerve-, and muscle-filled tail. These people have what’s known as an atavism. It’s a physical trait from deep evolutionary time that occasionally pops back up and, in this case, means that the affected person will forever be referred to by the unsympathetic as “Tail Boy.” Because of the probability of significant Levi’s chaffing and never-ending ridicule, most tails are surgically removed almost immediately upon discovery.

The BMW M235i also has a tail, albeit a metaphorical one. The car itself is a throwback, its genetic code expressing something that has gone nearly dormant in the last generation of small BMWs. The company is aware of this. It has even advertised this two-door model as the spiritual successor to the 2002, the model that predated the original 3-series.

With all due respect, BMW is wrong about that. The 2002 is too far back in the rapidly evolving car world to share much of its character or size with any new car. Modern BMW compacts are larger and more thickly padded animals, both in physical dimensions and in the broad scale of their market appeal. The M235i instead reverts to the same general plan as the E46 M3 of the early 2000s. That’s back to a time, in other words, when our adoration for BMWs was at its most unabashed.

Have a look at the two specimens. The M235i is within an inch and a half of the 2003 M3 in almost every exterior dimension. The M235i carries an inline six-cylinder engine pushing out 320 horsepower, compared with the M3’s 333. Of course, the new car uses a turbocharger to maximize horsepower, where the old engine used stratospheric revs to achieve its numbers. The M235i wears staggered tires on its 18-inch wheels, just like the old M3’s standard setup. When both are equipped with six-speed manual transmissions, the M235i trails the M3 to 60 mph by a tenth of a second (4.9 seconds to 4.8) but is two-tenths quicker through the quarter-mile (13.4 seconds to 13.6). Because automatic transmissions have improved so much over the last decade or so, the M235i with its eight-speed automatic sprints to 60 mph in 4.3 seconds and covers the quarter in 12.9. The M235i also stops shorter and corners harder than the old M car; tire technology has also advanced.

As its convoluted name implies, the M235i is neither a fully aggro M car nor just a day-to-day standard sports coupe. Its character is in between the two. And that’s . . . well, that’s perfect. The M235i is easy to drive slowly and rewarding to drive quickly. It is, in fact, just about everything we want a modern 3-series to be: quick, confident, and sexy, with decent fuel economy, a close-coupled cockpit, and an eagerness to romp that’s been suppressed in the current 3. And like BMWs of old, the tall greenhouse allows for excellent outward visibility. The car is a manifestation of nostalgic impulses.

The M235i proves that BMW still has the code to driving excellence. This makes us both relieved and slightly annoyed that it’s not used on a broader range of the company’s products. The M235i might be a throwback, but it’s also a decidedly positive step up the evolutionary ladder. Long live the tail.

 Cadillac CTS:

Cadillac’s CTS fended off multiple Audis, Benzes, and BMWs to win its 10Best berth. While we are (still) big fans of the twin-turbocharged, 420-hp V-6 that powers the Vsport model, it’s the handling that sets the CTS apart from the competition. To determine how GM sharpened the CTS’s reflexes to cuff the Germans, we returned to the scene with Cadillac’s executive chief engineer, Dave Leone.

Turns out that Leone and his development team know these byways—located only 30 miles from GM’s proving grounds—as well as we do. “We’re here every month to check our progress tuning new models and to assess competitors,” Leone explains. “The bends, bumps, and abrupt elevation changes challenge any car’s integrity, so this loop is an excellent supplement to our Milford Road Course and Nürburgring work.”

The third-generation CTS builds on the ATS’s Alpha foundation with larger wheelbase and track dimensions. “To optimize mass efficiency and to achieve a [near] 50-50 weight distribution, we created over 40,000 analysis models. We specified aluminum for most of the front components, positioned the battery at the rear of the car, and counted every gram to gain a 200- to 300-pound weight advantage,” Leone adds. “We targeted both the E90 [2006–2013] BMW 3-series and the current 5-series. When the 5 got heavier, our task became easier.

Leone’s strategic weapon, the electronically controlled magnetorheological (MR) dampers that GM developed years ago, has seen use in several sporty European cars. As we sail over a crest, he notes: “Our goal is maintaining the car’s composure in the face of severe road inputs. The MR dampers help keep the body straight and level by sensing suspension travel and by responding rapidly with extra rebound control over rises like this one. The dampers collaborate with the springs and anti-roll bars to keep the body flat in sweepers and to quell waddle [GM’s funny word for head toss] over undulating pavement.”

Encountering a stretch of tortured asphalt, Leone switches the Driver Mode Control from sport to tour. “The softer tour setting enhances comfort over rough roads while still providing enough damping to meet our goal of limiting wheel motion to one up-down cycle per bump,” he explains.

The body control is astounding over roads like this, but if the steering were less faithful, there’s a good chance we wouldn’t enjoy driving the CTS as much as we do. Leone explains, “Thanks to compliance in the belt connecting the assist motor to the steering rack, there’s minimal interference with the feedback traveling from the road to the driver’s hands.”

To Leone, the whole goal of chassis development is to create that elusive special sauce: “After enjoying a delicious dinner, you might ask for the recipe. That will reveal the ingredients while telling you nothing about the chef’s subtle contributions. The car-world equivalent is what we call integration: applying the necessary small refinements to assure that the whole vastly exceeds the sum of the parts.” And it’s amazing how General Motors—long the corporate behemoth most associated with sloppy handling, inattention to detail, and a generalized malaise—has gotten so adept at turning the good into the great."

Chevrolet Corvette Stingray:

When the first Corvettes rolled out of the primordial postwar haze in 1953, they were far from fully evolved. By all accounts, the shoddy, fiberglass-bodied “sports car” was headed for extinction just as quickly as its meager six-cylinder engine and two-speed automatic transmission could carry it. But then Chevrolet installed its first small-block up front. Thusly and successfully mutated, the Corvette’s genetic code has remained stable for 60 years. With few exceptions, the venerable Vette has always been a powerful V-8 plastic-wrapped with only whatever additional engineering was necessary.

The LT1 V-8 in today’s Corvette Stingray displaces 6.2 liters and makes 460 horsepower and 465 pound-feet of torque when paired with the performance exhaust or Z51 packages. Other engines may make more power or have more exotic designs, but there is no engine that feels closer to a living, breathing entity than the Corvette’s pushrod V-8. It is close to sentient, shutting down half its cylinders to conserve fuel and granting the Corvette a 29-mpg EPA highway rating. But the LT1 is no goody-two-shoes; it reminds you constantly of its presence, just on the other side of the fire wall behind the axle centerline. At idle, the Corvette vibrates to its pulses, urging you to uncoil the tension in the p­edals and shifter.

When you do, it becomes evident that chassis resources were not begrudgingly allocated in designing this seventh generation of Corvette. Grip is far beyond the limits of daily driving. The steering wheel, brakes, and seat bottom tell you more about current events than CNN. Power delivery is immediate, at any sane speed, in any of the first four gears. There is still raw aggression in the Corvette’s acceleration, but the chassis is no understudy to the powertrain.

While the rev-matching seven-speed manual transaxle is our obvious preference, an eight-speed automatic is new for 2015. It offers crisp, quick shifts via steering-wheel-mounted paddles and makes two-pedal Corvettes more than just tolerable. Also new: the Perform­ance Data Recorder, an onboard video technology serious enough that its full capabilities are not entirely legal in some states. Criticisms of Corvettes past have been addressed: A modern cockpit and supportive and comfortable seats testify to the thoroughness of Chevrolet’s mission (accomplished) in remaking the car. The C7 is the best-ever Corvette.

Even in this, its second year on our list, C7s hypnotize, the convertible and coupe equally. Sitting in the lot among the other contenders, they stand out as if rendered on a Retina display while others are appearing on a CRT. You might think that our familiarity with its many facets and creases has bred boredom, and certainly other beguiling shapes, even a real Italian demi-supercar, vied for our attention this year. But the Stingray looks transplanted from childhood fantasy, an interstellar dragon. We hear it roar, smell the heat of the LT1 cooking its own polymer skin, and the Corvette turns such imaginings into reality.

Ford Mustang GT:

Imagine an enormous pyramid of glass spheres, perfectly balanced. Pull just one of those interdependent orbs from the base of that pyramid and the entire thing comes crashing down. In any complex system, a ­single change can have devastating consequences.

Or it can send things in the opposite direction. During the development of the 2015 Mustang, one move set off a chain reaction that irreversibly altered the Mustang for the better. Granted, it was a big change: swapping out the old solid rear axle for an independent one. Partially derived from the ­­aluminum and steel components supporting the tail of Ford’s Fusion sedan, the Mustang’s new inde­pendent suspension brings unprecedented refinement—unprecedented for a Mustang, anyway.

Chief engineer Dave Pericak swears that a new front suspension wasn’t part of the initial plan for this sixth-generation Mustang, but after it had fitted the new independent rear, his team realized that the front suspension it had been working with was now outmatched. And once the team started down that rabbit hole, the result was a complete chassis tear-up. In went a new design with a completely different geometry and a new subframe, which just happens to be lighter and stiffer than the individual crossmembers on the old car. Pericak calls it a “significant time, money, and engineering investment,” but admits that the improvements would not have been as marked without it.

Atop the new suspension, Ford placed a new body that is also lighter and stiffer than the outgoing one. It is a beguiling design, too, inviting long stares and walkarounds, and devoid of the bloat that makes other retro designs look like old cars wearing fat suits. The result is a decisive abolition of the distinction be-tween pony car and sports car. In spite of an increase of about 150 pounds in curb weight—the inevitable result of safety and electronic gear, as well as the independent suspension and bigger brakes—the Mustang doesn’t feel fat.

Thanks to the stiffened front end, the steering wheel twitches in your hands, communicating textures, undulations, and grip levels as you drive down the road. Turn the wheel and the car responds as quickly as if you’d poked it with a needle. Wheel and body control are just as tight. Dive into a series of challenging turns in the Mustang and you’re not driving a car, you’re wearing wheels.

That connection is furthered by the GT’s smooth, responsive V-8. Five liters is small for the Mustang’s class, but the 5.0’s 435 horsepower and 400 pound-feet of torque aren’t inadequate by any measure. Snappy throttle calibration makes slight output adjustments easy, and the six-speed’s closely spaced ratios keep the driver engaged. Refinement has also come, finally, to the clutch and shift linkage, neither of which requires as much muscle to operate as in last year’s car. We do wish that Ford would have left the exhaust alone, though the polite factory-fitted stranglers will make those working in the aftermarket overjoyed.

Oddly but happily enough for us, amidst all this urbanity, Ford somehow decided that it would offer the first production car with line lock. Engage the system while stopped and the front brakes hold the Mustang stationary as burnouts not even your 16-year-old self could have imagined boil off the unbraked rear tires. We can’t figure out how that made it past the lawyers.

However they were distracted, the bean counters must have been with the legal team, because every detail in the cabin seems fussed over. With its stitched leather, matte-silver toggle switches, and faux turned-aluminum trim, this in­teri­or boasts meticulousness heretofore absent from mainstream American cars. There’s an element of toyishness in the sheen of some of the plastics and the Duplo-scale toggle switches, but that puerile charm gets to the heart of what we love about the Mustang. It reminds us that driving a great car can be play, something that even grownups enjoy.

Honda Accord:

There is a veil of sameness draped over the Accord that comes from racking up 300,000 to 400,000 annual sales, year after year. Who would imagine that such an exceptional car could be hiding in plain sight, mimicking a lowest-common-denominator family appliance? Many Accord owners are unable, or do not care, to spot what makes their car better than the rest. Most just get in and drive. But that hasn’t stopped Honda from treating its bestseller like a flagship. Indeed, they are one and the same.

Accords are not pimped out to shabby rental fleets, so the cars go home with real customers, those who ran a gantlet of salespeople and dealership-finance goons to get their cars. Buying or leasing the car, even if you have a good experience, will certainly be the worst part of Accord ownership. Once home, owners will find that their Accords are dependable, no-fuss devices. Whether sedan, coupe, or hybrid, an Accord ingratiates itself first by delivering on its family-car promise: Five humans fit comfortably, it’s easy on fuel, and the trunk is ready for Costco. There is more, however.

The seduction is a subtle, two-pronged lure. The first is that the Accord combines thousands of parts into one as if they weren’t bolted, welded, snapped, or glued together but molded to form a single, one-piece device. Parse each piece, though, and here’s what you get: the harmonious hum of hundreds of engine components, slicing throws of the six-speed manual or fast responses from the continuously variable transmission (yes, even it), satisfying weight in the steering, an absorbent yet playful suspension, and a driving position that seems to have been custom tailored with an emphasis on great outward visibility. Accords are better cars than they have to be, better than their owners might demand, a rarity in our consumer economy.

The second trick is another kind of camouflage: These cars have the ability to transcend, to fade from attention on dull drives and then reappear when you’re fully engaged. Even to the initiated, the Accord is a chameleon. Whether you choose to partake of it or not, a percentage of amusement is built into each car. Most of the Accord’s competitors don’t even offer driving joy on their options list. But the Accord is always ready when you are. As with old friends who haven’t spoken in a long time, there is an ease to picking up where things left off.

It should come as no surprise that the Accord is a bestseller. And yet, someone who has never driven one might think that giving it a 10Best award is akin to Michelin (the restaurant-guide part of the operation) giving three stars to the local McDonald’s. But the Accord is proof that millions can be served, and still be served, the best.