Small cars rule as finalists for N.A. Car of the Year

Fuel-efficient small cars and trucks won over the judges as finalists in this year's North American Car and Truck of the Year judging.

The Ford Focus, Hyundai Elantra and Volkswagen Passat are the finalists for the 2012 North American Car of the Year.

For North American Truck of the Year, the finalists are the BMW X3, the Honda CR-V and the Land Rover Range Rover Evoque. All the vehicles, both the car and crossovers, are compacts except the Passat, a midsize sedan.

Of all the myriad car and truck awards out now, the North American is still considered the most prestigious. It's picked by about 50 top auto journalists, including Test Drive's James R. Healey, and will be named at the big auto show in Detroit next month.

All three of the car finalists reflect the strategy of their respective manufacturers:

• The Focus is the first of many cars and crossovers that Ford plans to introduce from a new global platform.
• The Elantra is one of several new models from Hyundai that achieve at least 40 mpg, an attribute the South Korean automaker has touted in its advertising.
• The Passat, built at Volkswagen's new plant in Chattanooga, Tenn., is a linchpin of VW's goal to sell 800,000 cars a year in the U.S. by 2018. Through November, it has sold 398,654 vehicles in 2011.

"The finalists for Truck of the Year show how much our idea of what a truck is has evolved," said Detroit Free Press auto critic Mark Phelan, who also is a judge. "They're all crossover SUVs that offer fuel economy and performance you wouldn't have dreamed of in a truck 5 or 10 years ago."

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