Mazda CX-5 - Part Crossover, Part Sports Car

The CX-5 on a racetrack--nice.

Mazda may be best known for its now iconic Miata two-seater sports car. Fashioned like a highly efficient and reliable version of the British sports cars of the 1950s and 1960s, it has sold almost a  million units since its debut nearly 25 years ago.

What Mazda hasn't done effectively is sell lots of its other cars, despite a good showing from its compact Mazda3. The company now is planning to increase sales in the U.S. through a thorough upgrade of its model line, and the CX-5, along with the all-new midsize Mazda6 sedan, are showing the way.

Why not use the Miata/MX-5 as at least a style inspiration for all your cars? The CX-5, as a compact crossover (SUV), could have gone the way of vehicles such as the popular Ford Escape, Honda CR-V or Toyota RAV4. All of these models are new in the last couple of years, as well, and boast up-to-the-minute looks with lots of curves and angles inside and out.

The CX-5, though, goes a more subtle way, using something called Kodo design. Mazda likes to create a theme and spread it over its cars,and Kodo, which is said to mean "Soul in Motion," uses gently rounded surfaces from which edges extend gradually. A sharp line on, say, the hood or the dashboard may resolve into a flat surface. This means that overall the shapes are relaxing and substantial, but have surface interest to keep them from being plain vanilla.

The CX-5 exists at all because Mazda is no longer part of Ford, for whom it contributed its Tribute small crossover, with a slight restyle, as Ford's Escape for years. The current Excape now is based on one of Ford of Europe's models, the Kuga, and is very different from the Mazda design. The CX-5 is, unlike many Japanese brand vehicles sold in the U.S., actually built in Japan.

In any case, this new CX-5 is a crossover with true sport and utility. Based on car, not a truck platform, it sits high, seats five, and will carry nearly 65 cubic feet of cargo with the second seat folded. It's long enough back there to fit an upright bass--without placing the long fingerboard between the front seats. The seats drop with the pull of a handy lever at the tailgate, so you don't have to go around to the side of the car when loading.

The sport part of the proposition is in how the car borrows Miata features such as the three-gauge instrument panel tucked behind the three-spoke steering wheel, the center stack and console, and the handsome, deeply bolstered seats.

You can order up two engines in the CX-5, depending on which level you order. The base car, called the Sport, has the 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine that the car debuted with for 2013. It puts out 155 horsepower and 150 lb-ft. of torque, which is OK but hardly exciting.

With the early 2014 models such as my tester, you can step up to Touring or Grand Touring level and get the 2.5-liter four that also lives under the hood of the brand new Mazda6 sedan. This new engine offers 184 horsepower and 185 lb.-ft. of torque--a big boost--and makes the car feel much more responsive on the road. EPA ratings are 25 City, 32 Highway, 27 Combined. I got 26.2 mpg. Amazingly, the smaller 2.0-liter engine's numbers are nearly identical. The EPA Green Vehicle numbers are 7 for Greenhouse Gas and a mid-range 5 for Smog.

You can't choose your transmission with the upper models--a six-speed automatic is it--but the Sport offers a manual as well, more in the spirit of the Miata/MX-5. You can add all-wheel drive to any CX-5.

I would welcome the chance to sample the Sport with the manual sometime, as it would most approximate the driving experience of the much smaller Miata, which has a slightly more powerful 2.0-liter four under its rakish hood.

My Soul Red Grand Touring tester had the full boat treatment, which included dramatic 19-inch wheels on the outside and perforated leather seats inside, along with a full complement of entertainment and performance features. The audio system had the first Pandora tab I've seen. If my iPhone was set up with it, I would be able to use it in the car.

Mazda is proud if its SkyActiv technology. In brief, the name implies that the company took many steps to make its current engines, transmissions, bodies and chassis as efficient as possible while developing future technologies. This means everything from using more high-tensile steel in the body to a control module to make the automatic transmission more efficient. The CX-5 is the first Mazda to feature the full menu of SkyActive features. See mazdausa.com for more details.

You can add the Tech Package to your CX-5 and get "necessities" such as a navigation system, HID headlamps, and the Smart City Brake Support system, which can stop the car for you in a low-speed emergency faster than you can yourself.

The crossover segment is highly competitive, so Mazda offers the three levels and a range of prices. You can opt for the Sport with front-wheel drive and a manual transmission for $21,990. My Grand Touring tester, with two-wheel drive and the Tech package, came to $30,640. Both prices include shipping.

The compact crossover is today's station wagon for small families, and Mazda is doing its utmost to field a very attractive player. If you like the beauty and refinement of the Kodo design, it could be ideal--and fun.

The Back Pages Bring the 1960s to Life

The Back Pages at Maltby's on March 22, 2013, blue-lit

I grew up listening to the radio in the 1960s. It was AM on a tinny little receiver until the last couple of years of the decade, but I ate it up. I listened in the morning and after school and especially at night in my room.

I remember hearing the first Beatle songs on the radio--songs like I Want to Hold Your Hand and She Loves You. I also had records, including Meet the Beatles as an 11th birthday present and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band when my mother brought it home in mid 1967.

But the most important thing was the variety and the familiarity, yet surprise when new songs appeared. That's what you get when you go listen to The Back Pages. This long established San Francisco Bay Area band can knock out a series of Beatles, Rolling Stones, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Yardbards, Van Morrison, and more. And they do a great job of keeping the sound pretty close to the original.

Just tonight I heard them for the second time. Slightly different from the last show, they were lacking their keyboard player and featured a substitute guitarist. Lucky for them, and the audience, it was the highly skilled Bill Zupko filling in. Bill, who plays Beatles and other favorites with Ticket to Ride, knows how to break down a song and learn the parts perfectly, so I heard George Harrison leads played the way George played them.

Getting to hear a variety of this "classical" music is a treat for me, but also means that younger people can get a sense of the excitement of the sound. I never heard these songs done live myself, but with the energy and careful reproduction the band obviously has worked to create, it's a worthwhile experience.

It was made all the better by taking place in Maltby's, a nice restaurant and tavern in Los Altos, California. My lamb sandwich went well with the brown ales available on tap from the friendly bartender. During the evening, small groups jumped onto the small dance floor and shook themselves about to the beat.

There are lots of tribute bands out there, but when you have to reproduce a reasonably close version of songs by a variety of artists, it takes special skill. I've seen several good local groups, but The Back Pages may be the best of the bunch--and they're great guys, too.

The Back Pages play Maltby's again tomorrow night--and are regulars, so you can catch them again soon--if you're in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Hyundai Elantra GT - The Right Recipe

The Elantra GT is another example of Hyundai's successful approach to marketing cars in the United States (and presumably, elsewhere). Each time they introduce the next generation of a model, it's notably better than the previous one.

The GT is the third model of Hyundai's compact Elantra lineup. The Elantra now comes as not only a four-door sedan but a two-door coupe, and the GT takes the place of the previous Touring model, which was more a station wagon design.

The GT, like other Elantras, now flaunts the swoopy lines that are part of the company's "Fluidic Sculpture" design motif. This dramatic look has helped make the midsize Sonata a huge success, and has given more charm to the modest Accent and other new Hyundais, including the Tucson and Santa Fe crossovers.

The car is very much in the thick of the marketplace, with plenty of competition. And Hyundai's information packet is eager to compare its new five-door hatch to others. These include the Toyota Matrix, Mazda3, Ford Focus, Subaru Impreza and Volkswagen Golf. Interestingly, in pretty much every category, the car is equal or better than the others. And that's really the point--this Korean brand wants to be seen as a direct competitor to the mainstream companies--not a bargain version. I think we've seen Hyundai and it's sister brand, Kia, achieve parity in the latest generation of its products.

The GT, despite a name that sounds like it could be on a Ford Mustang V8 or even an Italian exotic sports car, is a five-door hatchback. But that's just fine. It offers more interior space than most of its competitors (at least last year's versions) and is lighter than the others, at 2,784 pounds. That means that its 1.8-liter four-cylinder engine, one of the smaller ones of the aforementioned comparative vehicles, gets the most power per liter of displacement (82.2). The GT is at least 100 pounds lighter than the other cars, thanks to greater use of high tensile steel among other things.

The 1.8 liter engine puts out 148 horsepower and 131 lb.-ft. of torque--at the smaller end of the field, but still enough to permit some spirited driving. My Black Noir Pearl tester had the six-speed automatic, but a six-speed manual is also available, and I expect would be even more fun.

Fuel economy figures are class-competitive, at 27 City, 37 Highway (30 Combined) for the automatic version. The EPA numbers are very good--Elantras have been near the top of the list for a while now. For cars sold in California, the Smog score is 6 and the Greenhouse Gas number is 8. There's a PZEV version of the automatic version that gets a 9 for its smog score. Those are hybrid level numbers. All Elantras get SmartWay designation from the EPA.

Like most cars of its category, the Elantra GT employs MacPherson struts up front with coil springs and gas shock absorbers, and torsion beam and monotube struts in back. Compared to the sedan version, the GT's higher spring rates and other tuning give it a more athletic performance. The GT's optional 17-inch wheels impart a sportier look and receive special sport tuning to dial in even more of the fun factor.

Like all the new Hyundais, the high-energy personality isn't reserved for just the body styling. The interior is lively, with exuberant swirls along the dash and doors. The door-mounted window controls are at a 45-degree angle, for example, not on the straight horizontal. Shiny trim and handsome double gauges give a surprisingly upscale appearance. I was impressed that the fully featured audio system displayed the entire artist name and song title. Some more expensive cars I've tested don't.

The Elantra is not an expensive car, but you can boost its price by about 25 percent by adding the Style and Tech packages. My tester had them. The Style package adds the 17-inch wheels and sport suspension, as well as a panoramic sunroof and leather seats, steering wheel and shift knob. The driver's seat has power adjustments, including lumbar. You get racy looking aluminum pedals, too, and the convenience of an automatic-up driver's side window (handy for sprinting away from toll booths).

The Tech package adds a navigation system, something that's nearly as common today as a radio was a generation ago. You also get dual automatic temperature control, keyless entry and a neat hidden rearview camera.

The car's versatility, with folding seats and handy rear hatch, make it a good choice for active lifestyles and small families looking for economy without boredom.

Prices start at $19,160 for the manual-equipped model. Add in the automatic transmission, the Style package ($2,750) and Tech package $2,350) and you get my tester, at $25,365 (including floormats). All prices shown include shipping.

The Elantra GT blows away the old Touring wagon, which was a nice little car but didn't have much pizazz. With the looks and youthful driving personality, it should continue to boost the brand. You can get one for barely more than a commute mobile or spice it up and have a real hot hatch.

Acura MDX - Luxuriously Above it All

Acura was the first Japanese car company to offer a luxury line in the U.S. That's right--Honda's upscale division arrived before Toyota's Lexus and Nissan's Infiniti. However, they haven't tended to be the sales leader in the segment. The Acura MDX, now in its 2nd generation, is an attempt to remedy that, by competing feature-for-feature with its Japanese and German rivals for the upscale family SUV market.

Maybe it is a little nervy to declare your intentions versus, say, BMW or Mercedes-Benz, but that's what the MDX does. Although it shares some structural elements with the more plebeian Honda Pilot, it boasts potent V6 power--300 horsepower from 3.7 liters. Power flows through a sequential-shift automatic six-speed. It comes standard with numerous high tech and pampering features, too.

Being a high-tech Honda at heart, the MDX offers variable valve timing and electronic lift control (VTEC), computerized fuel injection and a high-flow, sports tuned exhaust system to get V8 power from six cylinders. Fuel economy, for the 4,627-pound unit, is rated at 16 City, 21 Highway (18 average), but I only got 16.0 mpg during my test.

Standing 5'10" tall, even with me, the MDX welcomes driver and passengers with a broad, spacious interior for five (and room for two more with the disappearing third-row seat). The Acura interior design template calls for a bold expression of motion flowing up the center console onto the dash and extending strong like a giant Aries symbol into the doors. The wood trim looks like it's a solid two inches thick. The three-dimensional contouring makes the car feel energized yet as secure as a bank vault. A neat, silvery rolltop cover conceals the cupholders when you're not using them.

I was surprised that this luxury vehicle still used a regular key. Although it did flip out from its case, switchblade style, it still needed to be inserted into a lock, unlike most medium to high level cars, which all use keyless entry. Also, the audio system doesn't display the entire name of the artist and song, unless it's short--an old looking technology. But the steering wheel does electrically contract towards the dash for easy entry and exit, and the dash bristles with features.

The MDX is essentially one model with one engine and transmission combination. Where you can go to town is in adding packages. The Tech Package brings in fancier leather--perhaps it takes high technology to process it. The real attraction is the upgraded audio system and navigation, which uses an eight-inch,  high-resolution full VGA color display. The car's rear-view camera provides three different views. The three-zone automatic climate control uses solar sensing and has air filtration and humidity control.

The Advance Package brings even more high-quality leather--perforated this time, with ventilation as well as the standard heating. There's a blind spot information system that illuminates if someone's occupying the area next to the car that's outside your mirror view. Put on your turn signal and it'll warn you visually and noisily not to turn.

Even better, the Collision Mitigating Brake System will try to keep you from smashing into anyone. One day, while driving along, I was passing someone who was waiting to turn, and because the road curved, the system attempted to stop me, thinking a crash was imminent. It not only threw on the binders but flashed "BRAKE" in red letters at the top of the dash. I drove meek as a lamb after that.

With either package, you can order up the Entertainment Package, which supplies a drop-down video screen for rear-seat passengers, along with two sets of headphones, which tuck neatly into pockets on the backs of the front seats. The headsets felt uncomfortable when I tried one on, with hard pads against my ears.The package also gives you a 115-volt power outlet on the dash and heats the outward-facing rear seats.

All this adds up to a pretty enjoyable driving and riding environment. The V6 pulls along nicely, but the only downside was the 16-miles-per-gallon fuel economy. The EPA's Air Pollution score is a decent 6 but the Greenhouse Gas number is a more modest 4. But this is not the car for environmentalists. Acura and Honda sell many smaller, lighter, and more efficient models. This is about a grand driving experience.

Prices start at $44,175 for the MDX. Add packages, and you will end up where my Palladium Mettallic top-of-the-line tester did, at $55,700.

The MDX, assembled in Alliston, Ontario, contains 25 percent Japanese materials, including the transmission. But it is quintessentially American, stressing size, comfort and choice. While not the darling of the Sierra Club, it provides, in the second decade of the 21st century, a level of pampering that makes luxury wagons of a generation ago seem, well, like cars.

Ford Escape - A New European Adventure

The Escape - In San Francisco!

The new Ford Escape is a great departure from the original model. There are very good reasons for this, and it's good news for American car buyers.

The original Escape was a junior version of Ford's Explorer, which was hugely popular at the time--and seemed to need a companion for folks who wanted a smaller SUV. The Escape, since it arrived, has competed with models such as Honda's CR-V and Toyota's RAV4.

The original car, though was based on a Mazda platform; Ford sold off its interests in the Japanese brand years ago, so the new Escape is based on the European Ford Kuga, a car that we never had in the U.S. before. Much like the Focus, Fiesta and Fusion, the Escape is now a world car, although the Escapes we get are assembled in Louisville, Kentucky.

The new model couldn't be more different. While the original Escape followed the "two-box" model, with an upright windshield, flat hood, blunt nose, and squared-off cargo hold in back, the new one is much more edgy. It's really the ultimate crossover, with the carlike feel that's popular with buyers today. That means a larger, longer windshield (the new Escape's is like a minivan's), and any hint of truck is banished. The "utility" part remains, with folding rear seats and a rear liftback.

The new Escape is touting its special foot-activated liftback. Although my Deep Impact Blue Metallic tester did not, for some reason, have this feature, it's great for those times when you arrive at your car with your arms full and just want to open the rear hatch.

The inside of the new crossover carries over the European design theme. No surface is plan or simple. The dash and doors are built of angles and interactions, so your eye doesn't settle anywhere easily. The look is interesting, and even exciting. Ford's interiors in recent memory were more likely to be plain and subtle.

As usual, there is a hierarchy of models, from S to SE to SEL to Titanium. The differences are too many to lay out here, but you can get a fairly straightforward family hauler or load it up as a Titanium with pretty much every option imaginable. Ford's website lets you configure the one you want and price it out before visiting a dealership.

My test car was an SE. That meant 17-inch alloy wheels outside, cloth seats inside, and the equipment most crossover buyers would want, including air conditioning with climate control, a sound system that includes satellite radio, remote keyless entry, and all the airbags you could imagine. A couple of modest packages added things like black roof rails with crossbars, and the MyFordTouch system.

MyFordTouch lets you configure what you're looking at on the dash and access your phone and car controls with voice commands. As computer and smart phone users, we expect to be able to customize these items, and you can. You can make hands-free phone calls, change audio programming and adjust the climate control with a flick of a switch on the steering wheel and some clearly enunciated words. With practice, I've gotten the system to work fairly well, but there is a learning curve.

Ford wants the new Escape to be fuel efficient, and offers three four-cylinder engines. The standard one is a carryover 2.5-liter unit that puts out 168 horsepower and 170 lb.-ft. of torque. But the excitement is  around the two EcoBoost powerplants, including a 1.6-liter and a 2.0-liter. The smaller of the two, despite its compactness, beats the 2.5-liter, with 178 horsepower and 184 lb.-ft. of torque. The 2.0-liter unit is the sporty one, with 240 horsepower and 270 lb.-ft. of torque.

My tester had the 1.6-liter under the hood, and it did a decent job or moving the 3,500-lb. car down the road. It was not a rocket going uphill, however. I'd like to see how the 2.0-liter unit would pull. In any case, I averaged 22 miles per gallon, which is not the 26 average that the sticker claims (23 City, 33 Highway). I may have skewed it with too much bumper-to-bumper commuting, but I'd like to do better with such a small engine. Both EcoBoost engines require premium fuel, which adds at least a dime to every gallon you buy.

All Escapes use a six-speed automatic transmission, and all-wheel drive is available. In this application, four-wheel traction is intented as a safety feature and is not really intended for any serious off-roading. Ford makes other vehicles to help you with that.

Like other new Fords, this car drives well, with taut handling, a firm suspension, comfortable, supportive seats, and some feedback to your hands through the wheel of what's going on below. This really is the family wagon of the 21st century, and Ford is surely hoping that this radically different Escape will continue to be a bestseller.

Prices start at $23,295 for an S and move up to $31,195 for the Titanium. My SE, with options and delivery, came to $28,335. All prices include shipping.

Ford, the company that made a fortune on SUVs in the 1990s and early 2000s, has been adapting to a changing marketplace. Expect to see more crossover vehicles like this new Escape and the hybrid C-Max in showrooms and on the road. The EcoBoost engines, which deliver "next-size-up" power with more efficiency, will proliferate. And sharing a platform worldwide will keep costs down. And Fords will not be boring, you can count on that.

BMW 3 Series - The Original Sports Sedan

The BMW 3 Series has become so identified with its role as "the" sports sedan (or coupe or wagon) that it defines the segment. Automotive buff magazines routinely rate the car in their "top ten" favorite lists, year after year. So what do you do when you redesign it for the sixth time?

In the case of the sixth generation car, which came out as a 2012 model, you make it slightly larger and a bit more fuel efficient. For size, the sedan now sits 3.66 inches longer and has a wider track (1.46 inches front, 1.85 inches rear). And the car looks larger now, too, thanks to horizontal lines and tricks like having the flattened twin-kidney grille link up with a chrome bridge to the headlamp pods. Despite casting a larger shadow, the new car is almost 100 pounds lighter, thanks to some thoughtful touches in design and materials.

The body still reads 3 Series, with the Hofmeister kink in the rear side window, quad headlamps, and the familiar proportions of the well-loved classic. The styling excesses of the Chris Bangle design era never completely altered the 3 Series--BMW's biggest seller--and the latest car, while sharper edged and  more energetic, is not as tied to flame surfacing and odd juxtopositions.

To make the 3 Series more fuel efficient, BMW gave it a four-cylinder engine option, after many years of selling only the inline six. This latest model uses Twin-Power Turbo technology to get 240 horsepower and 260 lb.-ft. of torque out of just 2.0 liters of displacement in the 328i. The 320i model offers 180 horsepower from the same displacement. In the old nomenclature, a 328i model name would indicate a 2.8-liter engine, probably a six, but today it's just a number. The 335i gets the inline six today.  With a 5.7-second zero-to-sixty time, the four is absolutely no slouch. It just sounds less like a BMW.

With either engine, you can have a standard six-speed manual or a remarkable eight-speed automatic. The manual, in my personal opinion, is the fun and sportier way to go, but here in the United States, the automatic is king. Eight gears allows some precise and efficient gear selection. For an extra $500, the Sport version of the eights-speed automatic provides handsome steering wheel paddles for racecar style quick shifts.

The manual transmission is upgraded with carbon friction linings in the sychromesh, one of  many ways of making sure the shifts are smooth and fast.

The xDrive models give you a shot at a 3 Series with all-wheel-drive traction. Choose it in any model. Or, opt for a convertible, for a refreshing open-air experience.

The EPA awards the four-cylinder 328i with automatic an average of 26 miles per gallon (23 City, 33 Highway). In my Alpine White test car, I achieved 25.7 mpg--essentially matching the EPA for a change. The car with the manual shifter gives up one mile per gallon in the city but gains it back on the highway--earning the same 26 mpg. The Green numbers are pretty good, at 7 for Greenhouse Gas and a 6 or an 8 (depending) for Smog.

Driving a 3 is always fun, even on the freeway, but hours of commute traffic make it feel like it's all cooped up. You really want to move along in this car. I got onto a favorite back road and it stretched out and ran. The carefully tuned independent suspension provides quick reflexes and sufficient comfort, while the floating-caliper disc brakes on all four wheels stop the car in a hurry. As a BMW, it flaunts an ideal 50/50 front/rear balance, and it uses rear-wheel drive--a fairly rare but highly touted way of building a sports sedan.

You can customize your experience on the fly by using Driving Dynamics Control to select one of four settings. You can leave the car in the fine "normal" setting or set it more like a real sports car with the Sport or Sport + setting. Or, choose ECO PRO and the car will tailor the throttle mapping to burn less fuel. My tester actually shut down at lights to save gas--an unexpected sensation--especially in a BMW.

BMWs have often seemed a little plan inside, for their price. The newest 3 Series cars have more curves, trim pieces and richness than their predecessors. My tester featured leather buckets in Dakota Coral red and black. You can actually select from four trim levels in the 3 Sedan: Sport, Luxury, Modern and M Sport. Think rich black trim for the Sport, chrome for the Luxury, and satin aluminum trim for the Modern. The M Sport gives even more, including especially nice 19-inch wheels.

I was amused at the car's hidden cup holders. There's a tray that fits over them, so if you want to be a German and say "nicht" to drinking and driving, leave the shelf in. If not, pop it out and store it in the glovebox. Another interesting act of hiding is the control for playing the satellite radio. You have to push the main controller to the left to expose the selection. You'd never see it on the dash.

Will the faithful go for this new and powerful four-cylinder engine? The sixth car I ever tested (and first BMW) was a 3 series with 1.8-liter four of its day, and it had a lighter touch than the more common six. 

Pricing for 3 Series cars starts at $33,445 for the 320i with automatic transmission and a 180-horse power of the inline four. My 2013 328i test car, with the 240-horsepower engine, top M Sport package, a dynamic handling package with the Cold Weather package, variable sport steering, came to $47,295.

I drove my first BMW 3 Series in 1992. It was a 318i, and put out just 113 horsepower. It still felt wonderful, and the 3 Series continues to please its constituency--it's just a little bigger now--in every way.

Nissan Sentra Steps Up

There are many compact cars on the market today. They are perfect for most automotive tasks. The differences are in how they look and feel--and what they cost.

The Sentra has been Nissan's compact competitor for three decades. It originated when the Datsun brand started being called Nissan--the company's real name--in the early 1980s. That naming convention remains with the Altima and Maxima, but there was a slightly larger Stanza around for a while, too.

The 2013 Sentra takes a step up, borrowing its looks, inside and out, from the brand new midsize Altima. That means the bold trapezoidal chrome grille that Nissan has decided is today's look, more sculpted sides, and the cut-out taillamps that grace not only these two cars but originate with the latest Z sports car. There are even LEDs added to the headlight and taillight pods--definitely an upscale touch. The goal is to give this modest vehicle some of the visual heft of a larger model--what Nissan dubs, "class-above style."

Part of the point of a compact car is to have enough room to do what you need but keep the size and weight down so you can use a smaller engine for greater fuel economy. Nissan was able to take 150 pounds out of the new car versus the last generation model, even though it has about a cubic foot more interior space. My little Magnetic Gray four-door test car had surprising knee room in back, and when I looked at the car in my driveway, it really did evoke the larger Altima, with whom I had recently spent a test week. The new car is a couple of inches longer, a half inch lower and about an inch and a half narrower than its predecessor.

Nissan uses a new 1.8-liter dual-overhead-cam inline four under the curvy new hood to power all Sentras. It puts out a class-competitlve 130 horsepower and 128 lb.-ft. of torque. Most Sentras come with a continuously-variable automatic--except for the base model, the S. I had an S, which means I got a taste of the bottom-of-the-line car--a rare experience. It was more than satisfactory. With the smooth-shifting six-speed manual, the 2,800-pound car felt spunky in traffic and had no trouble zooming into fast-moving freeway traffic. I'm not sure why the manual is with the base car only, except that it probably keeps the cost down.

The EPA gives the manual-equipped Sentra ratings of 27 City, 36 Highway and 30 Combined. I earned a pleasing 34.8 mpg overall--one of the better numbers I've generated lately. Only the electric, hybrids and turbodiesels have surpassed that figure. The green numbers, courtesy of fueleconomy.gov, say 5 for Smog and 8 for Greenhouse Gas--enough for SmartWay status.

The Sentra not only looks more expensive than it is, but it feels that way inside, too. The dash and door styling includes some padded surfaces and the materials feel high-quality. Even though the steering wheel is plastic, it is grained and proportioned to look and feel good. The air vents for the standard air conditioning mimic the sweep of the grille--they are not just circles or rectangles cut out of the plastic.

The Sentra is definitely not a luxury car, particularly in S guise, but there is no sense of deprivation driving it. It sealed out road noise effectively, so I could hear the standard four-speaker AM/FM/CD sound system. The seats are well-proportioned and comfortable. The steering wheel is adjustable for  height and telescopes for a perfect placement. The Fine Vision gauges are attractively backlit.

Even base cars today offer things that were luxuries years ago. I flipped door-mounted levers for the power windows, locks and mirrors. What there was not in my base S was Bluetooth for the phone, seat heaters or Satellite Radio. But for a week, I enjoyed the FM radio instead, and it wasn't so cold that I could do without the bun warmers. Bluetooth, though, should probably be standard, to prevent hand-held phone use--something that's illegal in California (and a bad idea anywhere).

Above the S model, the SV adds cruise control, two additional speakers,  higher-quality interior cloth, steering wheel audio controls, and a security system. The SR adds sporty touches, including 17-inch alloy wheels, more aggressive front and rear fascias, and a different grille on the outside; inside, silvery trim and upgraded seats do their job to differentiate the SR. The SL is the luxury model, with extra-fancy alloy wheels, fog lamps, heated outside mirrors outside, and Bluetooth, a leather wrapped steering wheel, automatic climate control and more inside. There are also two FE+ versions of the S and SV that use clever technology to earn the holy grail of 40 mpg highway.

Testing the base car is always fun, because the price is so reasonable. My tester came to just $16,770. That's low by today's price standards. If you really want to get a car for less, the true entry point Nissan Versa starts at just $12,800. Sentra prices move up through the levels, with an SL coming in at $20,600.All prices include shipping.

It's good news for compact car buyers today. There is lots of selection, and the vehicles won't make you feel like you had to sacrifice looks, comfort or performance. With this compete redo, the Sentra is right in the thick of it.