This segment has been hardest hit by the huge popularity of sport-utility vehicles. Just a few years ago there were more than 12 cars in the segment and now there are just seven. Heading up the field as Best Buys are the Chrysler Concorde and Dodge Intrepid twins. They have real room for six, exceptional road manners, and plenty of power.

Toyota's Avalon and Buick's LeSabre are two Recommended choices. Both have room for five and offer a comfortable ride (with modest handling capabilities). If you are looking for towing ability or don't mind having a rear-drive car, then we recommend you take a look at the Ford Crown Victoria. With its rear-drive layout and body-on-frame chassis it's a dinosaur in this class, but Ford has updated it nicely over the years and it comes at a reasonable price.

After sagging 24 percent in calendar 1999, Bonneville sales jumped 45.4 percent in 2000 to some 65,600. The 2000 redesign was no doubt a stimulus, buyers apparently ignoring press judgments that styling was over-the-top.

Bonneville's next full makeover had been due for model-year 2005, though industry sources had Pontiac replacing Bonneville with a mid-size "crossover" wagon, tentatively named Banner, based on General Motors' forthcoming Epislon front-drive car platform. However, that scenario is unclear now that GM has again decided to weed out more overlapping car models corporate-wide. The Banner was designed as a relative of the similar Buick Signia, which itself is now in question.

If Bonneville does survive past 2004, sources say it would move to a stretched version of GM's "Mid-Lux" platform, which is destined for the next generation Pontiac Grand Prix as well as the Buick Century/Regal and Chevrolet Impala/Monte Carlo. The first Mid-Lux cars are now slated as 2003 models. Whatever happens, Bonneville should continue pretty much as is until the current "G-body" design runs its course.