Yahoo News 10Best Cars for 2025
From the January/February 2025 issue of Car and Driver.
"What's the best car?" Getting asked that question is an occupational hazard in this business. (And, yes, we realize that it's not actually hazardous, at least compared with the occupational dangers faced by, say, ironworkers who build skyscrapers or zookeepers who feed lions.) When you drive and test hundreds of cars every year—as our editorial team collectively does—it's a natural query. And our annual 10Best awards provide the answer.
Since 1983, we've been conducting this exercise: We identify the very best of what's available, not merely our favorite new models introduced for a given year. An onslaught of new or significantly redesigned contenders vies with the winners from the previous year for one of the 10 coveted spots. These days, the price cap is $110,000 (sorry, Ferrari). We gather our staff and contributors from far and wide for an intense two weeks of driving and instrumented testing, interspersed with arguing. And then we vote. The winners are those that best fulfill their intended mission, deliver value to their buyers, and spark driving joy.
This year's list of 10Best Cars sees eight returning models and two new honorees. Together, they answer that oft-asked question. The best cars you can buy are right here.
Click each individual car to get the full story, or keep reading to find out more about the 2025 10Best cars.
Cadillac CT4-V Blackwing
Sports sedans at the hottest end of the market are like the gunslingers in old Westerns. They roll into town each year with their bandoliers full, ready to fire bursts of horsepower, handling, and speed at their rivals. We pit them against one another in "shootouts" to see which will be the last one standing when the tire smoke clears.
In the pitched battle that is 10Best Cars, the CT4-V Blackwing has once again defended its place as the compact high-performance sports sedan to beat. It's back for the fourth time in a row since it first went on sale for the 2022 model year. Note that neither of its most formidable antagonists, the BMW M3 and Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio, have made the 10Best list during that time. In this class of high-performance turbocharged six-cylinder four-doors, the CT4-V Blackwing rules.
Cadillac CT5-V Blackwing
Seismic changes to the vehicular landscape from just a few years ago mean there are fewer and fewer sports sedans available to the drivers who cherish them. And fewer and fewer of those are available with a manual transmission, and with rear-wheel drive. And from that set, there is just one with a V-8: the now four-time 10Best-winning Cadillac CT5-V Blackwing.
Those four criteria alone put the big Blackwing in the middle of a Venn diagram of our dreams. What's not to love? Few cars ever made can devour highway, back-road, and commuting miles as competently and comfortably as the CT5-V Blackwing does. And for '25, it has gotten even better.
Chevrolet Corvette
We don't need to prattle on recapping the long and storied history of the Chevrolet Corvette—you likely already know all about it. From the early days of the C1, which dates back even further than this magazine, to the current C8 generation, the story of the Corvette has been marked by plenty of highs and lows. Today, the Corvette is riding an undeniable, history-making high. After decades of rumors, the decision to pull the trigger and move to a mid-engine configuration for the latest-generation Vette was controversial but one that has played out in spectacular fashion for Chevrolet. The Corvette is now on another level.
Part of the current Corvette's magic is how each model in the lineup feels both unique and uniquely Corvette. From the 490-hp Stingray, to the first-ever all-wheel-drive Vette in the form of the E-Ray, and right up to the shatteringly quick Z06, each version of the Corvette combines track-scorching capability and explosive acceleration with supple-for-a-supercar ride quality and everyday usability. Even in its base form, the Stingray launches to 60 mph in 2.8 seconds; add two driven wheels and throw a few electrons into the mix, and the E-Ray makes the same pass in 2.5 seconds.
Honda Accord
Driving an Accord on a twisty road is a revelation on par with discovering your accountant is a champion bodybuilder. You just don't expect such ability from a four-door family sedan. Although, if you're a regular C/D reader, you should. The Honda Accord has claimed a 10Best title now 39 times. It's topped our mid-size family sedan list for years, and every time editors get inside one, we read logbook entries like: "It's still got it" and "The Accord hits all the marks."
The marks the Accord hits—which make up the "it" that it's got—are all the expected deliverables such as interior space, ride comfort, fuel economy, and general user-friendliness, combined with handling and response that aren't usually front and center in a sedan at this price point. For a starting cost of $29,390, even base-model Accords can tuck neatly into a turn and carry themselves out while bringing a smile to the driver's face. At the EX-L hybrid trim and above, the turbocharged 1.5-liter four-cylinder becomes a 2.0-liter four-cylinder paired with two electric motors for a combined 204 horsepower, and the hybrid Accord is not only quick to dive into the corners but also zippy coming out, all while getting an impressive 39-mpg result in our 75-mph highway fuel-economy test.
Honda Civic
Developing an affordably priced small car that doesn't feel like it's affordably priced is one of the most difficult challenges in the auto industry. But you wouldn't know it from driving a Honda Civic. That could be because of Honda's decades-long experience in the arena. The Civic dates back to the first energy crisis—it was introduced as a 1973 model—and is now in its 11th generation. Some Civics have been better than others, but taken as a whole, excellence has been a through line for this nameplate, and this is the 11th time the Honda Civic has appeared on a Car and Driver 10Best list.
Lucid Air
Over 400 miles of EPA range combined with smooth, silent, and quick performance makes the Lucid Air a great EV. But the Air—which earns a spot on the 2025 10Best list in both the base Pure and upper-level Touring trims—is more than that. The Lucid Air is also an excellent luxury sedan.
The exterior is sleek, modern, and stately without drawing undue attention to itself. It's aerodynamically efficient yet looks distinct. Inside, the cabin is, unfortunately, overreliant on screens and has minimal physical controls. Yet the displays are crisp and well organized with a stylish interface, making the Air easier to interact with than the screen-heavy EVs from Tesla and Rivian. Driver and passengers enjoy a high-quality environment with an interesting mix of materials, from cloth to leather, to genuine metal accents.
Mercedes-Benz E450
The E450 wraps its occupants in a warm, luxurious embrace and delivers them to their destination feeling better than when they left. That should be the goal of a luxury sedan, and the E450 does it better than its competition.
This isn't the first time we've had the E-class on our 10Best list; its predecessor won the award in 2018 and 2019; but this is the first time the new W214-generation car has received the honor. We're limiting the award to the E450 model, though, since we didn't have an E350 for 10Best testing.
The E450 is refined, offering a comfortable ride and a hushed cabin at highway speeds. The inline-six is smooth, is powerful, sounds terrific, and is always at the ready to deliver sports-car-like acceleration. At our test track, the E450 sailed to 60 mph in 4.4 seconds and completed the quarter-mile run in 13.0 seconds at 109 mph.
Porsche Boxster/Cayman
If there's a Platonic ideal of a 10Best winner, this is it: the Porsche Boxster and Cayman. Coupe or convertible, four-cylinder or six, manual or PDK automatic, there are no bad choices in this lineup. Sure, a 718 Cayman GTS 4.0 manual might be our favorite child, but a no-options 718 Cayman—the least expensive entry point to the lineup, at about $75,000—is a thrilling machine. Exciting, beautiful, and rare, the word "exotic" might apply if it weren't saddled with pejorative baggage, because Porsche's fraternal twins aren't temperamental or unlivable. Quite the opposite. Go look for used ones and you'll find plenty of six-figure odometer readings. Throw the top down on a Boxster, and your 15-minute Sunday coffee runs have a way of turning into two-hour back-road adventures.
Subaru BRZ/Toyota GR86
While sports cars tend to be prohibitively pricey as well as impractical, the Subaru BRZ and Toyota GR86 defy convention. Starting at $32,265 and $31,085, respectively, the two attainably priced coupes combine Mazda MX-5 Miata–rivaling driving dynamics, a pair of vestigial rear seats, and a sizable cargo hold capable of carrying three carry-on-size suitcases. This versatility gives these two sports coupes the ability to take on daily driving duties with minimal compromise. Mostly, though, it's the driving experience of this duo that lands them on our 10Best Cars list for the fourth year in a row.
And what an experience it is. With rear-wheel drive and a standard six-speed manual transmission, the light and lithe BRZ and GR86 make every moment on the move an utter delight. Even steady-state cruising is a relative pleasure courtesy of the cars' surprisingly comfortable ride and standard adaptive cruise control.
Tesla Model 3 Long Range
None of us expected to be charmed by the updated 2024 Tesla Model 3 Long Range that arrived at our 10Best competition this year. The car looked mostly like it did when it was introduced eight years ago, and our long-term experience with a 2019 version was less than stellar. We didn't expect any earth-shaking upgrades—and there weren't any.
But this latest version has comprehensive enhancements in every area. For example, the battery has grown in capacity from 75 to 82 kWh. The electric motor driving the rear wheels has picked up 81 ponies for a total of 302. These improvements increase the EPA range from 311 to 363 miles and shaved about a half second from both the zero-to-60 and the quarter-mile times.
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