Best luxury sedan
 

of 2004. A blast from the past.

https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews...ign=nl23246037

Never owned a sedan or saloon as we call them here. The impractical shape just baffled me, with the cargo load area being low down and awkward, and getting things out that have slid forward requires bending at an awkward angle. And if you want to carry anything large, forget it. They still seem quite popular in the US though.

My current Jazz is the first non-saloon I have ever owned. I never liked the appearance of a hatchback, much preferring the saloon. So far I have never carried anything in my Jazz that would not have fitted in the boot of any of my saloons.

I've had all the various types through the years. I currently have a Sonata. It's very comfortable and I mostly like it. I sort of wish I'd kept my CR-V for the easier ingress/egress. I keep two large tubs in the trunk for groceries etc.. I have the Weathertech liner and four of their cargo blocks so if I want I can block off any sort of area shape too. The tubs are about 15x24 and a foot deep. If they do slide all the way forward, although they never move, they are no more than a two foot reach to pull back so no awkward bending or stretching. If I ever change vehicles again I'll probably go back to a CR-V/RAV4 type as the seat height is more ideal and the door a bit larger/taller but otherwise I'm happy with the sedan.

I always enjoy going back and reading comparison tests in Car And Driver and see how the cars aged over the years, and did they actually deserve to be ranked so high. In 2004 I would have picked the Jaguar or the Mercedes; if I could go back it would probably be just the Jaguar. I have been reading the magazine since 1998 and bought my 1998 Accord and 2018 Volt based on tests in the magazine.

I think people like sedans because they have a lot of advantages over hatchbacks and wagons. Some of them are:
- The cabin is separated from the trunk, so whatever you are carrying in the trunk the smells won't make it into the cabin.
- The cabin is smaller and echos less, therefore it's quieter
- Most people prefer the looks of the sedan
- Sedans tend to be more aerodynamic, makes the car quieter

I personally prefer the looks of a sedan, but I know how useful hatchbacks are. Every time my brother buys another sedan, he complains how little room there is and how his Golf was the perfect car. I told him many times to stop whining and get a Golf GTI already. "The rear seats in my Lexus GS300 won't fold down, my Golf had twice the room!"

To me, your car is a Coupe, not a Sedan. I know the original definition was a fixed roof with two seats and two doors but more recently the four-door with a sloping rear roofline is also classed as a Coupe. Such as the MB CLS.

It's certainly a debatable point although I find the amount of slope less severe than that MB and others. I'm mainly going with the old fashioned metrics, 4d - sedan, 2d - coupe. But I agree fully they're blurring the lines in this like everything else.

I don't get why they don't just make the rear screen part of the boot lid so it all goes up together, like a "fastback". You'd still have the same shape, just easier to access cargo space. I'm an amateur car detailer and sedans are really annoying to clean the rear window and vacuum the parcel shelf which is usually fixed and covered in hair/dust/ash/dead flies as the air enters the car and pushes and dirt/debris back there...

I think it has to do with body rigidity, if you can put a beam between the two rear tires the car will handle better. If there is a beam then might as well make a sedan.

The 4dr coupe is a marketing construct. The entire 4 door coupe movement started because Porsche didn't want a sedan/saloon in their line up, but wanted the sales of having one available. Coupes are sporty thus acceptable for their image.

If there was an actual techincal reason for a 4dr coupe, like the rear slope, there is no more sedans as aerodynamics and fuel economy targets has given then all a sloped rear.

Yeah, cleaning that rear shelf is a pain, but the positives of the sedan out weigh the negatives, which is why it was once the most popular car type in the US.

I once saw an old('80s?) Accord fastback. It might have been two door, and most of the past cars that were fastbacks only had that many doors. My father had a 1969 Mustang fastback, which meant it it sloped rear window like today's sedans vs. the more squared off rear window of sedans of that time. He also had an Accord Crosstour, which Honda cancelled. Some of the BMW X's might be Crosstour shaped.

The only fastbacks I can think of left as the Ioniq, Prius(Toyota calls their fastbacks liftbacks), and Model S. Overall, it just hasn't been a very successful car form. it has all the negatives of the hatchback and wagon body with just a partial increase to cargo space, while possibly crowding the rear passenger head space. They are nice for minimizing aerodynamic drag. Most people though want more cargo space from a boxier end, or more secure cargo from a trunk.