Consumer Guide® Automotive places each vehicle into one of 18 classes based on size, price, and market position. Compact Cars comprise popularly priced sedans, hatchbacks, and wagons with wheelbases 100 inches or longer.

Our Best Buys include the Honda Civic and Mazda 3. Our Recommended picks are the Chevrolet Cobalt, Ford Focus, and Mazda 5.

New or significantly redesigned models include the Hyundai Elantra, Nissan Sentra, Nissan Versa, and Pontiac G5.

Sources confirm the 2008 Focus will get modest styling and engineering updates on a largely unchanged vintage-2000 platform. The wagon body style may be dropped, but a 2-dr coupe, maybe a hatchback, will join the line. All models add the Ford brand's new three-bar grille theme, a full-length bodyside creaseline, and spruced-up interiors. Dimensions and powerteams will see little, if any change.

Like the similar make-do Focus freshening of 2005, this one reflects Ford Motor Company's continuing cash shortage. However, sources believe the North American Focus will share in a new-generation European platform that should be ready by early next decade--provided the company's current turnaround efforts succeed.

Ford is eyeing "B-class" vehicles to compete with small imports like Honda Fit and Toyota Yaris. Ford-owned Mazda reportedly contributes a basic design to be offered as a sedan (code-named B409), a 4-dr crossover wagon (B474) and a minivan (B475). The last is said to be due for model-year 2011, the others for 2010. All would be built in Mexico with shared underskin components, though appearance and some dimensions would differ among the three. Ford could also bring over one or more of its smaller European vehicles, suitably modified for the U.S. market, but this approach is considered less likely.