Hyundai Elantra – First Drive: In a previous position at a different publication where long-term cars were company-owned and not donated by the automakers' public relations departments, I vetoed a staff decision to lease a Volvo S60 instead of a Hyundai Elantra. This did not make me a popular person. We had just turned in a BMW 328i and my spoiled cadre of writers and editors wanted another luxury sport sedan to tool around in for two years. The new Volvo was a natural to fill the slot vacated by the BMW, they argued. However, Hyundai had just launched a redesigned Elantra with a terrific powertrain warranty, and it was my duty to keep the team and the content we produced sharply focused on the consumers who trusted us to tell them what cars to buy instead of what would make us look good rolling down Wilshire Avenue. To my knowledge, no publication had ever conducted a long-term test on a Hyundai so I decided that the time had come to test the Korean automaker's mettle. When our silver Elantra GLS sedan arrived, I gave the team this instruction: Beat on this car has hard as possible each and every time you drive it. Try to break it.

Aside from normal maintenance, which was cheap, nothing went wrong with that long-term Elantra unless you count the shift pattern decal which loosened and fell off the shift knob. After a wide variety of drivers with varying levels of driving skill had flogged it, my brother bought the Elantra at a deep discount and took it to Arizona. It spent four years in the heat and the dust, suffering indifferent care and infrequent oil changes. Yet it ran and ran and ran, needing only a new battery, tires, brakes, wiper blades, and other normal maintenance items over the years. There was a recurring "check engine" light problem, but unscrewing and then tightening the fuel cap reset the system most of the time. The car is gone now, traded for an Infiniti G35 that is babied rather than bullied, but that old Hyundai is likely serving another owner in the same unfailing manner it did my brother.

Proven durability is one reason I think the completely redesigned 2007 Hyundai Elantra is a terrific bet in the small car marketplace. Other reasons include its stylish sheetmetal, its comfortable and quiet interior, its impressive ride and handling, the quality of its construction, and its 10-year/100,000-mile powertrain warranty. Small cars are more popular than ever with recent fuel price fluctuations, but they aren't penalty boxes like they were ten years ago. Many cars in the sub-$20,000 price range are just as nice inside and drive just as capably as those approaching $30,000. The new Hyundai Elantra is one of those cars, and further evidence that the Koreans have figured out how to build world-class automobiles.