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Fourth Place: 2010 Toyota Yaris
Though it doesn't earn any gold stars against this group, for many people simply being a steal could be the only one it really needs.
While the Yaris placed last in this group, we're suspecting it's first in the hearts of plenty of money-strapped folks for whom heaven itself would be a car with double-digits on the odometer and a rearview mirror without a dangling pine-scented air freshener.
And despite a base price that's $2605 less than the second cheapest sled here (the not-exactly extravagant Versa), the Yaris still has a nice little list of virtues to crow about. For instance, it accelerates step for step with the Fit Sport to 60 mph, stops 13 feet shorter than the Fit, and -- get this -- arrives with stability and traction control, ABS, electronic brake force distribution, and brake assist, all as standard equipment. Take note, parents of college-bound road warriors. And if that oboe scholarship comes through, consider popping for the $1705 Power Package (which our tester had) that populates the car with the usual power goodies (door locks, windows, AM/FM CD player), but also important packaging flexibility via 60/40 split and tilting rear seatbacks and a bottom cushion that slides 4.5 inches. It matters in such a small car.
On the road, just about everything the Yaris does gets tempered with "but you know, it's base price is only fifteen grand." A lack of gear ratios (there are only four) -- rejoinder: "fifteen grand." Worst figure-eight time? -- "fifteen grand." Noisy? -- "fifteen grand." Which, if you say it enough times, starts to sound pretty attractive.
Third Place: 2010 Nissan Versa
The best argument we've seen yet for eventually coaxing big-car-loving Americans into smaller cars. But it's going to need more engaging styling to seal the deal.
Given all the recent talk about Americans needing to downsize their automotive expectations, the Versa was the only entrant here to offer a plausible template for how this might actually happen.
Nissan's littlest offering is a quantum mechanics-grade illusion. It simply has to be larger inside than out. While its exterior seems only modestly bulkier than the Fit's -- indeed, the box it would fit in is a mere 5.3 percent bigger than the Honda's -- it's a relaxing boudoir within. I refer you immediately to the nearby insightful information revealing accommodations in which a foursome of double-double-fed Americans could luxuriate in true trans-fat stupor. For instance, with a six-foot driver at the helm, his clone in the rear seat would still enjoy 0.9 inch of spare headroom and a ridiculous 4.8 inches of spare kneeroom.
And if this showdown focused purely on commuter duties, the Versa would be sipping the bubbly already. According to our sound meter and four miles of beautifully irregular roadway, the Versa was the quietest by a substantial margin, inflicting a mere 23.8 sones of interior noise, while simultaneously agitating its driver with the group's second-best-recorded ride quality.
The Versa's downfall came in two stumbles. Although its cornering attitude proved unexpectedly amenable to throttle probing on the skidpad, it was flummoxed by the oddball cambers of Mulholland's pavement. On the other hand, its 122 horsepower rendered it swiftest to 60 mph (taking 9.1 seconds) while the CVT's deft work with its infinite ratio options seemed positively clairvoyant in the real-world traffic tussle.
The Versa's second fault is its blindness to design. It's not that it's bad looking. It's that it simply doesn't look like...anything, really. Al Gore might have sketched this thing. Technically, Nissan has a gem on its hands here. Next time, they need to style it too.
Second Place: 2011 Ford Fiesta
Ford's gambit to sell a high-quality small car just might pay off. We're just not convinced it hasn't traded too much its sexy design.
You know that solid CRACK a baseball makes when it meets an oak bat, sweet spot to sweet spot? The Fiesta does that in two significant areas: styling and build quality.
Everywhere we took the Fiesta, eyebrows rose and admiring glances caressed the car. This is clearly a good-looking automobile, a shot glass brimming with European taste.
On the other hand, the Fiesta's triumph of styling comes with the defeat of a whole lot of practicality. That fashionable sloping roof? It pinches the view aft such that the main thing you perceive of the car following you is a hood. Open a rear door for a prospective passenger and he'll start googling Yellow Cab on his smartphone (see our interior measurements).
But slam that door, and you'll pause. Now there's a THUNK you certainly don't associate with this realm of car. And although the logic of the center stack's controls is rather scrambled by the stylist's hand, the quality of the soft-touch dash is simply superb (shocking, even, after years of miserable-grade plastic dashes in entry-level Fords). Crazy as it sounds, Dearborn's small-car gambit of charging a little more and then overwhelming you with quality just might work.
The car is also an impressive juggler of vehicle dynamics balls, simultaneously delivering authoritative handling, our group's highest lateral grip and ride quality, and second-best acceleration punch AND interior noise suppression. Many of these pairings generally represent zero sum games. Ford's somehow has turned them into win-wins.
As I mentioned, our car arrived with the optional ($1070) six-speed double-clutch Powershift transmission. Completely controlled by electrical instead of hydraulic actuation (a first), it's a helluva technological feat in this price range; remember, the Yaris is still stuck with -- forehead slap -- a geriatric four-speed automatic. Impressively, it actually affords better mileage than the Fiesta's standard five-speed manual (30 mpg city, 40 mpg highway versus 29/38-even trumping Honda's five-speed automatic). Moreover, with the lever slipped into Low, it functions magnificently as a Sport mode as it always strives to hold onto the lowest possible gear (downshifting as necessary entering a corner, while usually getting the upshifts timed right and done snap quick). Who needs paddles when the transmission reads your mind.
But if it's telepathy is working during normal driving, the Fiesta may get a migraine. Our example shifted uncertainly and sometimes inappropriately. Ford's response was that it was a preproduction unit not completely to production spec. That's probably so, but until we have a chance to resample this innovative transmission, Nissan's CVT is our top-cog dog of the two newfangled trannies here.
First Place: 2010 Honda FIT
Despite hitting road bumps with interior noise and ride quality, the Fit is an unbeatable combination of driving fun and interior packaging.
Swiss Army Knife Resolutely, the Fit defies its measured performance deficiencies with subjective real-world handling that's kart-like enough to make it the offering here voted most constantly entertaining. As opposed to the Fiesta's peak-a-boo outward vision, the Fits' windows provide a fishbowl view. The Sport version offers paddle shifters to play Sebastian Vettel with (though you'll likely do so only once). And then there's the interior.
And in the end, a winning checklist in this category necessarily needs the box labeled "insane space efficiency" boldly X'ed -- and the Fit is about as space crazy as they get.
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