MotorMouths

The 2010 Acura RL feels like a half-stab at luxury, with packaging, styling and performance that are very clearly mid-pack.

The Charger R/T is a passionate play in a niche full of milquetoast four-doors. You don’t have to wear a mullet to love it and own it—but we won’t get on your case if you grow one out, just to see if it fits.

The SLS doesn’t abandon technical refinement, but it does let its hair down with the loopy vintage bellow of that huge, hardly adulterated V-8. It compromises the actual driving experience for the mythic appeal—and the visual impact—of gullwing doors.

While other Acuras suffer muddled messaging and middling performance, the TSX Sport Wagon might hold a clue or two to the way back home to Tochigi. It sticks to Honda’s light, compact, and responsive heritage, with a smidge of the trappings of luxury.

Sturdy in feel, amazingly quick on its feet, and finally un-punishing on everyday roads, the X3 gets our nod—and not just because it’s a fellow countryman.

The 2010 MKT shifts Lincoln further away from its dowdy styling past and delivers vast interior room, while it brings a good measure of driving pleasure and sophistication along for the ride.

The finale for the current-generation 911, the GTS blazes into the Porsche retail experience in the middle of this winter. The GTS buffs the 911’s perma-luster, with a corresponding jump in sticker price.

So what exactly is the Aston Martin Rapide, if it’s not the most capable four-door on the planet? It’s got our vote as the most enduring design to surface in a generation of clumsy, kitschy supersedans.

The 2010 911 Turbo is an astonishing, pure driving experience, despite the layers of technology added to cope with its copious power. And it’s still distinctly a Porsche.