First Place
2005 Chevrolet Equinox AWD LT
This is a tricky choice to explain. Like the beauty-contest winner whose smile reveals a particle of food in her teeth, the Equinox is blessed with prodigious charm and grace--but there's an aspect of it that causes you to roll your eyes.
The bit of spinach stuck between the Equinox's front teeth is its electrically assisted steering. It's hard to recall a steering system with less feedback, a slower ratio, or more over-assisted effort. It's so off-putting that it threatens to detract from any of the Equinox's other driving qualities, a shame considering these include a competent 9.1-second 0-to-60-mph time, emergency-stopping distances that better those of the Escape or Santa Fe, and a nicely sensitive brake pedal. But the Equinox's strongest appeal really isn't about performance at all; it's the repeated bull's-eyes it tallies in design and styling.
And that starts with its interior space packaging. Uniquely in this comparo, the Equinox features a nifty sliding rear seat that can be redeployed fore and aft by eight full inches--a boon to interior-space versatility. While the mechanism itself can be a struggle to operate (puzzling, given that plenty of moms likely will be drawn to the Equinox), the option to either provide generous legroom to rear adults or reduce it for children (adding cargo space) is simply smart. Smart, too, is the forward-folding front-passenger seat (shared with the VUE) that allows the Equinox to swallow, for instance, lengths of PVC piping that would otherwise have to be lashed to the roof rack.
The Equinox is as smart-looking as it is smart-functioning. Its exterior design is an impeccable piece of functional sculpture, from its clean new-face Chevrolet nose to its well-proportioned flanks to its crisp taillights. Handsome. Compared with the others, it has a uniquely alert, slightly forward-leaning posture.
Inside, it's a knockout, too. Where the Escape's interior is a study in truckish utility, the Santa Fe's in exuberant overdesign, and the Saturn's in Goth alternative angularity, the Equinox's is clean, crisp, and elegant. It shares a tasteful design vocabulary with high-end consumer electronic products; Apple's beautiful flat-panel monitors come to mind.