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.

New-design replacements for the 40 Series are about 2-3 years away. Little is known about them now, but European sources say the new models will be based on the Ford Focus platform and will thus be somewhat smaller than the 40 Series. Volvo had been developing its own new small-car platform, but this has apparently been scrubbed as a cost-saving measure following last year's purchase by Ford of the Swedish company's car operations. The current 40 Series is a Volvo/Mitsubishi design produced by a joint venture company called NedCar. Mitsubishi is withdrawing from the partnership because it is now partly owned by DaimlerChrysler, which wants no connection with rival Ford. No word yet on whether production will continue in Holland or be transferred to one of Ford's own European plants. Nomenclature will change, however, in line with Volvo's new system of using even-number designations for sedans and odd-number ones for wagons. The replacements should thus be badged S40 if sedan and V50 if wagon.
More intriguing is the recent report by one British auto-enthusiast magazine that the "40/50" project may spawn "a totally different type of vehicle," in the words of one top Ford exec. Code-named C50 but also known internally as the All Activity Roadster (AAR), it's said to resemble Volvo's classic 1800ES 2-door sports wagon of the early 1970s, but with SUV-flavored elements like elevated ride height, chunky bumpers, and jumbo wheels and tires. The "all activity" moniker derives from a unique retracting roof and tailgate that would allow the car to be configured as a coupe, convertible or baby SUV. The C50 is still only in the talking stage, however, and is at least five years off, assuming it even gets a green light.