Auto News 5

It's not surprising that some on our staff had almost forgotten we had an Audi A7 in our Four Seasons fleet; the luxury car spent two months and close to 15,000 miles away from our office. Fortunately, contributor Ronald Ahrens agreed to drive the A7 back from San Francisco to Michigan over the course of a week. The lengthy drive didn't seem to bother Ahrens, who soon fell in love with our Audi and proclaimed, "After 2000 miles, I know that I'll never tire of the car's design, inside or out."

Minivans command a deep respect around the Automobile Magazine office. We see through the stigma and shrug off the soccer-mom jokes because a minivan does what so many imposters can't. A minivan moves people and cargo better than anything else, without the pretenses and compromises of a three-row crossover. No minivan earns our admiration as readily as the Honda Odyssey. The long-standing best of the bunch, the Odyssey held onto its crown against stiff competition when Honda released a redesigned model in late 2010. We were so impressed with the clever packaging and competent dynamics that we rewarded it with an All-Star award (later bestowing a second All-Star for 2012) and ordered one for a Four Seasons test.