Auto News 5

I really, really like the Flex, mostly because I am absolutely taken with the design: the shape, the proportions, and yes, the squareness. This is the American people mover boiled down to its pure, classic element. It is the utter antithesis of every jacked-up, pseudo-macho SUV and every bloated, trying-to-be-swoopy crossover.

The frozen consumer credit markets all but shut down auto sales in October, and despite Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's dumping of hundreds of billions of dollars into banks' coffers, lending did not ease significantly in November, so auto sales remained on ice. A second factor that might have dampened consumers' enthusiasm for new-car shopping is the fact that more than half a million Americans lost their jobs last month.