$25,000 Sports Sedans

[duongkhue84]

While the buffaloes in C/D's head office in Ann Arbor bumped heads over which vehicles to include in our annual "Just-Try-to-Beat-the-3-Series Test," eyes out in the West Coast bureau watched the burning skies of July with real trepidation. The searing sun seemed capable of removing the Nocturne Aubergine paint job from a VW Phaeton's skin. (Far as we can tell, that means "midnight eggplant.") Back in the Midwest, candidates were proposed, debated, explored, rejected, reconsidered, rejected again, suddenly adopted with no warning following a few particularly dry martinis, re-rejected because a test vehicle wasn't available with exactly the correct shade of felt ashtray liner, and finally readopted.

At one point, the count of competitors was 12. Then it was two. Then it was eight. Staffers threatened to quit, or worse, just take the rest of the day off.