AutoPacific Announces 2007 Ideal Vehicle Awards

Lincoln Top Premium Brand, Mercury Top Mainstream Brand, Mercedes-Benz S-Class Top Vehicle, Nissan Titan Top Truck

TUSTIN, Calif., Sept. 5 -- An "ideal" is defined as an excellent or perfect example. In the annual Ideal Vehicle Awards (IVA), announced today by automotive research and consulting firm AutoPacific, owners rate their new 2007 model year cars and trucks by how closely they come to their ideal. The cars or trucks that owners would change the least are the most ideal.

The conclusion to be drawn from AutoPacific's IVA results is that carmakers that best understand their customers create the vehicles that are ideal for their core buyers.

There are twenty-five segment winners and overall winners for premium brands and mainstream brands.

The top-rated premium brand overall is Lincoln, out-scoring Buick and Porsche for the most ideal premium vehicle brand honors. The top-rated mainstream brand is Mercury nudging out Hyundai for top mainstream brand results.

The top-rated vehicle (and top-rated car) is the new Mercedes-Benz S-Class, a Premium Luxury Car. The second and third top-rated cars are from Ford Motor Company -- the Mercury Montego and the Ford Five Hundred, both in the Large Car category. The top-rated truck is the Nissan Titan, a Large Light-Duty Pickup, closely followed by the new Ford Edge, a Premium Mid-Size Crossover SUV.

Ford Motor Company led the industry with a total of nine segment winners. General Motors and Hyundai have four each. Ford won five sport utility vehicle categories with Expedition, Explorer, Edge, Lincoln MKX and Range Rover.

Including two ties, of the twenty-five Ideal Vehicle Award (IVA) categories, American brands have twelve segment winners, European brands have six, Japanese brands have five and Korean brands have four winners.

The top-rated product segment is Large Car confirming that Americans continue to value large, comfortable cars suitable for suburban driving and longer distance highway cruising.

  2007 Ideal Premium Brand: Lincoln
  2007 Ideal Mainstream Brand:  Mercury
  2007 Ideal Product Segment: Large Car

  Top rated 2007 Ideal Vehicles:

  Passenger Cars:

  Premium Luxury Car               Mercedes-Benz S-Class
  Aspirational Luxury Car          Infiniti G35
  Large Luxury Car                 Mercury Grand Marquis
  Large Car                        Mercury Montego
  Luxury Mid-Size Car              Lincoln MKZ
  Premium Mid-Size Car             Hyundai Sonata
  Mid-Size Car                     Saturn Aura
  Image Compact Car                Audi A3
  Compact Car                      Hyundai Elantra
  Economy Car                      Toyota Yaris
  Premium Sports Car               Porsche Cayman
  Sports Car                       Porsche Boxster
  Sporty Car                       Ford Mustang/Volkswagen Eos (tie)

  Pickups, SUVs, and Minivans:

  Large Light-Duty Pickup          Nissan Titan
  Large Heavy-Duty Pickup          GMC Sierra 2500
  Compact Pickup                   GMC Canyon
  Minivan                          Hyundai Entourage
  Luxury Sport Utility             Range Rover
  Large Sport Utility              Ford Expedition/Chevrolet Suburban (tie)
  Mid-Size Sport Utility           Ford Explorer
  Compact SUV/Off-Road Vehicle     Suzuki Grand Vitara
  Luxury Crossover SUV             Lincoln MKX
  Premium Mid-Size Crossover SUV   Ford Edge
  Mid-Size Crossover SUV           Honda CR-V
  Compact Crossover SUV            Hyundai Tucson

In addition to identifying segment winners, IVA also establishes numerical ideal vehicle ratings for virtually every passenger car and light truck in the United States market. This results from calculating owner input across 15 specific areas related to a vehicle's exterior size, passenger roominess, cargo space, driver's seat comfort, drivers seat visibility, interior technology, power and acceleration, ease of getting in and out, interior storage compartments and tires and wheels.

AutoPacific is a future-oriented automotive marketing and product-consulting firm. Every year it publishes a wide variety of syndicated studies for the automotive industry. The firm also conducts extensive proprietary research and consulting for auto manufacturers, distributors, marketers and suppliers worldwide. Company headquarters and its state-of-the-art automotive research facility are in Tustin, California, with an affiliate office in the Detroit area.

Additional information can be found on AutoPacific's websites: http://www.autopacific.com/ and http://blog.vehiclevoice.com/. To weigh in with comments concerning these results, you can comment on the VehicleVoice blog site.