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. If you are leaning more toward the luxury scale, the Lexus ES 300 might be a more practical purchase.

We also recommend the sporty and Euro-flavored Audi A6, the comfortable Buick Park Avenue, the affordable and fast Infiniti I30.

Diamante's annual U.S. sales haven't crested the 10,000 mark in several years, and 2000 was no exception. In fact, the model took a hit, easing 7 percent from '99 to just over 9200 units.

The 2002 Diamante turned up at last April's New York Auto Show, though sales don't begin until this fall. Full details weren't available for this report, but the main news is updated styling, with new-look front and rear ends--including a grille bisected by an eagle-like beak--plus a flatter rear deck. Other than this and maybe a few new features, the '02 is familiar fare. However, Mitsubishi will try to give Diamante some "sports sedan" cache in February 2002 with a new VRX version featuring rear spoiler, lower-body "aero" skirts, handling-oriented suspension tuning, and more horsepower (as yet unspecified) than regular models possess.

Mitsubishi is now controlled by DaimlerChrysler, which is scrambling to cut losses at its Japanese affiliate as well as at Chrysler Group. This inevitably means future models from both companies designed around shared platforms and components, hopefully without being too obvious about it. What this means for Diamante is unclear. Mitsubishi's larger cars have never sold well in the U.S., and with Diamante sales still at the bottom of the class, the model could well be dropped after its current "design cycle". That was supposed to run out after 2002, but Mitsubishi has apparently torn up most of its previous product plans since DC took over, and late word has the next fully redesigned Diamante postponed until at least model-year 2006--if it appears at all. Assuming it does, this would be a stretched version of the midsize Galant and built alongside it at Mitsubishi's Illinois plant in the way the full-size Avalon relates to Camry at Toyota. Galant itself is reportedly being redesigned for 2005 on a new platform to be shared with next-generation Chrysler Sebring/Dodge Stratus models. Lately, though, DC, Mitsubishi, and even industry moles have been silent on Diamante, so it seems right now that a flagship Mitsubishi sedan has no more than a 50/50 chance of making it to mid-decade.