Welcome to our 2017 10Best Cars. Each year for more than three decades, we’ve put dozens of new cars through thousands of miles of cumulative evaluation to determine our annual list of the very best automobiles for sale in America. The rules for consideration are simple: Entrants must cost less than $80,000 (anything pricier should be excellent by default), and they must be either a returning winner or all-new or significantly revised. Winning isn’t easy, however—in order to take home a trophy, a vehicle must offer good value, excel at its given mission, and, critically, deliver a pleasurable driving experience. These 10 cars deliver all of those qualities in spades. While none of them are perfect, they come closer to that ideal than anything else you can buy new.
BMW M2 / M240i
This year, 10Best again proved that there are some nice cars to choose from if you’ve budgeted $40,000 to $50,000, but few are as entertaining as BMW’s top 2-series models, with their combination of humble size; pouncing, liquid thrust from the optional six-pots; and piano-wire tension to the controls. You can see why we picked the M235i last year, but the world keeps turning. The 2-series lineup gets new monikers: The 230i replaces the 228i as the base four-cylinder; the M235i becomes the M240i; and now there’s the juiced M2, basically an M240i with flares, chairs, tires, brakes, and a suspension tune, plus another 30 horsepower (though it can only match the M240i’s torque with a time-limited overboost function).
Chevrolet Bolt
The Chevrolet Bolt touches down in a world that is edging toward the point where EVs start to make sense to people other than the sort of folk who campaign against cruelty to fruit. The Bolt isn’t an excuse-free electric car, but it earns its place on the 10Best list by being the one that comes closest to rebutting two of the biggest criticisms that have been levied against the genre: expense and range.
Chevrolet Camaro
At about $45K, the track-capable, new-for-2017 1LE version is within reach of most industrious individuals. That gives it a leg, a foot, a boot, and some toenail polish up on the $76-grand-to-start-but-$100-thou-as-tested Mercedes. How many times through the 10Best testing weeks did we hear snippets of conversation that were some variation of “ . . . a hundred Gs for a C-class?!” People were saying that the doughnuts we gratefully gobbled each morning of 10Best were laced with a substance that made us all hyper-suggestible to Mr. Alterman’s voice as he daily reminded us of the three pillars of judging 10Best. How well does the car fulfill its mission? How fun is it to drive? And does it represent good value for the money? That last one is a bit of a sticking point here. The lavishly optioned Mercedes would have to perform heretofore unparalleled feats including, but not limited to, filling in a driver’s bald spot to compensate for its $100K price tag.
Chevrolet Corvette Grand Sport
Last year, the Corvette missed the 10Best cut after the C7’s two-year run. Perhaps the intoxicating influence of the 650-hp Z06 would have helped the Corvette gain enough votes for another year, yet by then GM had raised the price above our $80,000 cap. Enter the Grand Sport, which mates the regular Corvette powertrain to the chassis of the mighty Z06 while avoiding a major price increase. You can park a GS in your driveway for as little as $66,445, exactly $10,000 more than the base car and nearly $15,000 less than the Z06.
Ford Mustang Shelby GT350 / GT350R
The GT350 busts through its first two gears quickly enough that the raspy moans it makes at low revs are fleeting spine tinglers. Running to 60 mph takes only 4.3 seconds. But rev it out in higher gears, and the engine sounds as if it’s munching on itself, ready to rocket some pistons through the hood. None of that comes through the exhaust, however. From outside, the GT350 sounds the way a Jackson Pollock painting looks. It’s a splattering of sound—fiery, shocking, angry, and somehow perfect.
Honda Accord
The Accord is a kitchen appliance, engineered to offer an ambitiously broad set of buyers a car that makes them feel smart and secure. It is quiet and roomy, safe and efficient, inexpensive yet well equipped. It is a rational choice in a sea of rational choices. What sets it apart, as we’ve noted in 30 past 10Bests, is the way it drives. This is the front-wheel-drive sports sedan that nobody else seems able to consistently re-create, a car that flows from corner to corner with predictability and gratification, its engine loaded for exit, its preferred manual transmission slid tightly into gear. There is a controllability and a precision to the Accord that unburden its driver from thinking too hard about going fast. Or from really worrying about much of anything.
Mazda 3
Even well into its product cycle, Mazda’s 3 still carries momentum in places most of its competitors can’t. Refreshed for 2017, both the sedan and the hatchback subtly strengthen the 3’s third-generation design, which made its debut as a 2014 model. Two naturally aspirated four-cylinder engines—a 2.0-liter and a 2.5-liter—partner with the best chassis in the compact class to make a single point: The Mazda 3 is the driver’s choice. Mazda forgoes a dedicated performance version, instead making every 3 a testament to the brand’s wholesale devotion to the principle.
Mazda MX-5 Miata
Mazda built the millionth Miata in 2016, cementing its standing as the best-selling roadster of all time. It exemplifies the roadster ideal so perfectly and singularly that it’s easy to imagine the word “Miata” becoming Xerox for roadsters or fun. Just in case, Mazda already holds a trademark for the word Roadster, as that’s what the MX-5 Miata is called in its Japan home market. Of course, there’s little need these days for a generic term for a small and sporty convertible two-seater, since there aren’t many left. Mazda’s only direct competitor is a new entry from Fiat, but the 124 Spider is a re-engined and retuned MX-5 built by Mazda. With its own sheetmetal and a Fiat engine, the “Miat” left most editors at 10Best scratching their heads and wondering why you wouldn’t just choose the original.
Porsche 718 Boxster / Cayman
Really, the only way to achieve similar levels of driving pleasure is to look beyond the $50,000 barrier. There, you’ll find the Porsche Boxster/Cayman—or the 718, as they’re called as of this year. The 718 distills a similarly pure spirit, particularly in roadster form, even as Porsche has stripped out its glorious flat-six engines in favor of turbocharged flat-fours. The Porsche costs more than twice as much as the Miata to start, a price that can be justified by its greater levels of performance and luxury. (And also because of its badge, if that sort of thing matters to you.) But Porsche’s vicissitudinary pricing has caused recent Boxsters we’ve tested to approach six figures, far out of reach for many driving enthusiasts. The Miata, which began life as a reliable counterpart to cheap British sports cars, has now become a budget alternative to the “entry level” Porsche.
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