A perennial favorite, the Honda Civic, is new and better than ever. We love the wide range of bodystyles, engines, and equipment. Civic is a solid car that has good performance, a nice ride, and a high degree of civility. New last year was the Ford Focus. Though we loved almost everything about the Focus, we were reluctant to rank it a Best Buy because it was new from the ground up. After a year of living with a ZTS model, we can say that the reliability is good. Focus ranks a notch below Civic in some areas but costs less. Topping the crowded Recommended list are the Volkswagen Golf and Jetta. They easily could be Best Buys as they are better than the Civic in many ways. However, they are also the most expensive cars in this segment. Other Recommended choices include the no-frills Dodge Neon and Toyota Echo, the slightly-upscale Nissan Sentra, and the roomy Mazda Protege. If you are looking for a budget buy, the Hyundai Accent offers a lot for your dollar, however, it's not as refined as more-expensive competitors.

Daewoo Motor Company may be fighting for survival at home, but its U.S. branch has been doing very well lately, with total sales more than doubling year-over-year to nearly 68,400 in calendar 2000. That's not bad for a brand launched here barely three years ago, and it's a better performance than South Korean compatriots Kia and Hyundai turned in, though they're at 234,000 and 98,000, respectively. The midrange Nubira helped Daewoo's cause by attracting some 21,500 sales for the 12 months, a startling 150-percent gain over '99. Oddly, though, Nubira is outsold by both the Lanos below it and the Leganza above.

The South Korean parent company is still struggling to dig out from under a mountain of debt via an outright takeover, with General Motors now the only possible savior. Daewoo never recovered the Asian economic meltdown of a few years ago, and that's forced cancellation of several new models that might have come to America, including a small sports car and a compact pickup. Daewoo has also dropped plans for selling the compact Korando 2-dr SUV, a product it inherited on buying rival Ssangyong Motors a few years before the South Korean economy went south. Korando had been on the U.S. menu as recently as early 1999.