This hotly contested segment has a clear benchmark, it is the Acura TL (and its 2-door cousin Acura CL). The TL succeeds in blending comfort, style, luxury, and sport into an efficient package at an affordable price.
But the Acura's not for everyone. We also recommend the sporty and Euro-flavored Audi A6, the comfortable Buick Park Avenue, the affordable and fast Infiniti I30, and the luxury-orientated Lexus ES 300.

The 9-3 has been doing good business lately, with volume almost doubling in calendar 1999 vs. '98 and holding fairly steady in the first four months of 2000. An all-new version of the smaller Saab is set to debut sometime in calendar 2002, probably as an '03 model. The current 9-3 is a Saab design created before General Motors bought a stake in the Swedish automaker. GM now owns all of Saab's car division, and the new 9-3 will follow big brother 9-5 in sharing a GM platform. In this case it's the new Epsilon foundation also destined for the next-generation Chevy Malibu, Olds Alero and Pontiac Grand Am. Sources say the new 9-3 will be offered in today's convertible and 3-door hatchback body styles, plus a 4-door sedan and a first-ever wagon, though it's unclear whether all four will be sold in America. Spy photos so far don't reveal much about styling, but front-wheel drive and turbocharged Saab 4-cylinder engines are a certainty. Expect the sedan and/or hatchback to appear first, with the convertible, wagon and high-performance Viggen models coming along within 12 months afterwards.
Even more intriguing, Saab is said to be working on a 2-seater, it's first in some 30 years, for a 2003 or '04 introduction. Sources say it will be a convertible with a kind of dune buggy look, but will not be based on the mid-engine Opel Speedster/Vauxhall VX220 recently launched by GM Europe as derivatives of the British-market Lotus Elise. Assuming that's true, the new open-air Saab would likely use a shortened 9-3 platform with the same front-engine/front-drive format.