Consumer Guide® Automotive places each vehicle into one of 18 classes based on size, price, and market position. Midsize Cars represent the heart of the U.S. car market. Most are price-sensitive, conservatively designed, family oriented sedans and wagons.

Our Best Buys include Honda Accord and Toyota Camry. Our Recommended picks are the Ford Fusion, Hyundai Sonata, Mercury Milan, and Saturn Aura.

New or significantly redesigned models include the Saturn Aura.

A V8 LaCrosse Super is due by mid-2007 as an early-'08 entry. It uses GM's 5.3-liter engine with a 4-speed automatic transmission. Buick says the Super should do 0-60 mph in under 6 seconds and will have a firmer suspension, but is not intended as a "driver's car." A late prototype, shown to Consumer Guide last summer, wore a "wide stripe" vertical-bar grille, unique front-end sheetmetal, and a dressier cabin with front bucket seats.

LaCrosse is built on the GM W-body platform that dates from the early 1990s. That architecture will finally be retired with an expected 2010 redesign on the global "Epsilon 2" front-drive architecture engineered by GM Europe.