New England Winter Car of 2011 is the Jeep Grand Cherokee.
And the Winter Car class awards are . . .
- Pickup Truck- GMC Sierra 2500HD
- Compact SUV- Hyundai Tucson
- SUV ($25,000-$35,000)- Ford Explorer
- Premium SUV ($35,000-$50,000)- Volvo XC60
- Luxury SUV ($50,000+)- tie: Range Rover HSE/ Infiniti QX56
- AWD Sedan/Wagon – Subaru Forester
- AWD Sedan/Wagon $25,000-$35,000 –Dodge Charger
- AWD Sedan/Wagon $35,000-$60,000 –Mercedes-Benz E350 wagon
- AWD Sedan/Wagon $60,000+ – BMW 7-Series
The Yankee Value Award went to the Suzuki SX4.
The Best People Mover is Toyota’s Sienna AWD.
The Best All-Weather Sports Car is the Porsche 911 Turbo.
Appropriately for this record winter in New England, we had a record turnout of vehicles, and members of the jury were kept busy getting seat time in vehicles they hadn’t driven before.
Clearly, a number of manufacturers took the award seriously, and submitted vehicles carefully kitted out to our list of Winter Car specifications.
Equally clear is that Detroit’s new regimen is paying off. The top spot turned into a battle between the Jeep and Ford’s Explorer, both vehicles significantly improved in just one model year. Bravo!
I recommend you add a category for next year, “Most Fun to Have in the Winter”. And for othat category, I would recommend the Subaru WRX. With a set of snow tires, I reckon you’d be hard pressed to have a better time in a car with any amount of snow on the ground. Mine got me from Boston to Sugarloafin record time during the storm on Wednesday, February 2nd, 2011. It was a hoot the whole way… I never knew such epic amounts of winter grip were possible! All while averaging 24mpg… Not too shabby.
Good suggestion, and very good choice—and much more ‘accessible’ (i.e., cheaper) than the 911 Turbo as an all-weather sports car. We didn’t have a WRX in the fleet to test, but we did have a whale of a good time in the snow with an Audi S4: http://knox.villagesoup.com/blog/blogpost/audi-s4-goes-for-winter-gold/379618. Again, however, a lot more expensive than your Subie.