Compact sedan

The 2011 Toyota Corolla is one of the best-selling compact sedans in the U.S. market. But its gas mileage isn't necessarily anything to write home about. The most fuel-efficient model is the one fitted with the 132-horsepower, 1.8-liter engine and a five-speed manual gearbox, a transmission many...

Even in the sixth year of its life, the old 2011 Honda Civic frequently topped the chart in retail sales--meaning individual buyers--in the compact car segment. Now, there's a new 2012 Honda Civic lineup, launched to the world at the New York Auto Show two weeks ago. The version with the highest...

All we know so far is that Nissan will show a small car at the New York Auto Show, where media days kick off two weeks from tomorrow. But it's highly likely that the car will be an all-new 2012 Nissan Versa. It will be the latest entrant in a brewing battle among new and recently redesigned compact...

General Motors is yet to launch the local version of its 2011 Chevrolet Cruze sedan but instead of speeding up its arrival the automaker is working on a new Buick sedan based on the same platform. This platform is GM’s Delta II architecture, which in addition to the Cruze, also underpins the Opel...

To the long list of dead U.S. car brands, you can now add one more: Mercury. The Ford Motor Company announced today that Mercury production would cease by the end of this year. That means that the widely anticipated compact Mercury version of the 2012 Ford Focus--named "Tracer" after the...

We're back home from the mind-numbing madness of the 2010 Detroit Auto Show, unpacking, sorting press kits (well, these days they're just USB drives), and trying to work out what we thought of it all. This year, there's no question about the best green car there: It was the 2011 Ford Focus compact...

For the first time ever, U.S. automakers are getting ready to sell small cars that go beyond adequate to potentially great. Certainly the styling, specification, and safety equipment of upcoming compacts and subcompacts is a giant step above their predecessors. The latest example is the 2011...

As U.S. carmakers get serious about building world-class compact cars, one of the most eagerly awaited entries is the 2011 Chevrolet Cruze, which will face off against a totally new 2012 Ford Focus as well as revised models of the Toyota Corolla, Honda Civic, and Nissan Sentra. Now reports say that...