Every year Detroit products are hard to find when the leading U.S. automotive enthusiast magazines weigh in with their annual awards, top ten lists and so on.
The latest publication to announce its awards is Car and Driver magazine with its "10 Best" list. Included are just two Detroit cars -- the Chevrolet Corvette and Ford Focus. Honda alone has three winners.
Whether they admit it or not, "expert" magazine journalists -- a tightly knit, isolated and often pampered group -- do tend to bias their selections in favor of Japanese and German vehicles.
That said, I admit that as an enthusiast driver myself I usually agree with at least the majority of the magazine writers' picks, though perhaps not for the same reasons.
What's really troubling is that the cars coming from Detroit have failed to make the grade among enthusiasts for so long. It's not as though the media's disillusionment with General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and DaimlerChrysler Ag's Chrysler unit has just developed recently.
So why is it that Detroit has no answer to the Honda S2000, for example, a two-seat sports car that has been on the Car and Driver list for four years, let alone the Honda Accord, a winner 18 times!
In the higher end sporty segment, Audi's new S4 Quattro jumps in as a winner. Again, there's no Detroit rival in sight. The magazine also picks the Infiniti G35 as a winner for the second time in a row.
The G35's a significant choice, because a few years ago Nissan's luxury division had been written off by many industry observers. Infiniti was just as dead in the water back then as Lincoln appears to be now. Yet almost overnight Infiniti re-invented itself with sharp-looking, powerful vehicles and it is back in contention, and recognized as such by the media.
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The latest publication to announce its awards is Car and Driver magazine with its "10 Best" list. Included are just two Detroit cars -- the Chevrolet Corvette and Ford Focus. Honda alone has three winners.
Whether they admit it or not, "expert" magazine journalists -- a tightly knit, isolated and often pampered group -- do tend to bias their selections in favor of Japanese and German vehicles.
That said, I admit that as an enthusiast driver myself I usually agree with at least the majority of the magazine writers' picks, though perhaps not for the same reasons.
What's really troubling is that the cars coming from Detroit have failed to make the grade among enthusiasts for so long. It's not as though the media's disillusionment with General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and DaimlerChrysler Ag's Chrysler unit has just developed recently.
So why is it that Detroit has no answer to the Honda S2000, for example, a two-seat sports car that has been on the Car and Driver list for four years, let alone the Honda Accord, a winner 18 times!
In the higher end sporty segment, Audi's new S4 Quattro jumps in as a winner. Again, there's no Detroit rival in sight. The magazine also picks the Infiniti G35 as a winner for the second time in a row.
The G35's a significant choice, because a few years ago Nissan's luxury division had been written off by many industry observers. Infiniti was just as dead in the water back then as Lincoln appears to be now. Yet almost overnight Infiniti re-invented itself with sharp-looking, powerful vehicles and it is back in contention, and recognized as such by the media.
Read More