I am sure to become a Malibu fan now.

Chevrolet Malibu wins Car of the Year

General Motors' mid-size sedan wins coveted North American Car of the Year award. Mazda CX-9 SUV is Truck of the Year

By Peter Valdes-Dapena, CNNMoney.com staff writer
January 13 2008: 1:07 PM EST
DETROIT (CNNMoney.com) -- General Motors' Chevrolet Malibu mid-size sedan, radically redesigned for the 2008 model year, won the North American Car of the Year Award Sunday at the first media preview day for the Detroit auto show.

The Mazda CX-9, a sporty crossover SUV, was named Truck of the Year.

The Malibu and CX-9 were selected by a jury of 47 automotive journalists from the United States and Canada representing a range of media outlets including Fortune magazine, Edmunds.com, Road & Track and the Chicago Tribune.

To be eligible, vehicles must be "all new" or "substantially redesigned" from the previous model year. The journalists selected the Malibu and CX-9 from a field of 13 cars and 15 trucks.

With the redesigned Chevrolet Malibu, GM (GM, Fortune 500) hopes to finally take on the Toyota Camry and Honda Accord which have long been the top-selling cars in America.

The mid-size sedan has been well-reviewed by the media, including CNNMoney.com. The Malibu's interior has a twin-cockpit design that mimics classic Chevrolet Corvettes. Its exterior shape, with smooth sides, wide rear window pillars and side turn signals, is intended to resemble European luxury sedans.

This marks the second year in a row that a GM vehicle won Car of the Year. Last year, the Saturn Aura, a sedan that shares most of its engineering with the Malibu, won Car of the Year.

GM also won Truck of the Year last year with the Chevrolet Silverado and stood a good chance of winning again this year since two of three finalists were GM products.

But Mazda took the award with the CX-9 winning against the Buick Enclave SUV and Chevrolet Tahoe Hybrid SUV. Ford Motor Co. (F, Fortune 500) owns a controlling interest in Mazda.

The Mazda CX-9, a so-called crossover SUV, has already been named SUV of the year by Motor Trend magazine. The curvaceous CX-9 gets kudos for its ride and handling characteristics, which are especially good for an SUV with three rows of seats.

Shortly after its introduction, Mazda upgraded the CX-9's engine to a new V6 engine capable of producing 273 horsepower, 10 more than the engine with which it was originally introduced.

 

Yikes... guess looks don't count for too much these days.

 

The Epsilon platform cars are head and heals above the old cars. The first Malibu on this platform was extremely lame, pretty much anything was an improvement. The exterior styling to me looks terrible but so does the new Camry in my opinion and the Accord is well okay. The interior styling looks interesting on the Malibu. The interior styling on the new Camry does not impress me at all and I haven't seen the Accord in person yet to judge. The offering of a 6-speed with an I4 is a benchmark and the V6 offering offers similar acceleration as its competition, though getting worse fuel mileage. In my opinion, the Camry and Accord were never all that great to begin with. The only midsized car that impressed me in recent years was the previous generation Nissan Altima.

All I can say for sure is if the magazines like it, that is good news for GM.