34 10BEST FOR 2020 JANUARY 2020 ~ CARAND DRIVER
Expert
Opinion
—Ford Escape
hybrid
Well, I guess,
if that’s what
you’re into.Ford Mustang
GT PPL 2
Boisterous.
Like walking one
of Jared Gall’s
dogs.Ford Mustang
Shelby GT 350
Is this the most
special
engine here?
—
Ford, don’t
give up on cars
when you can do
them this well.Genesis G 70
This was
a deserved win
when we had 10
cars on the
list. I’m just not
sure it makes it
with five.GMC Sierra 1500
AT 4 Duramax
Sweetheart
of an engine—
smooth, quiet,
strong pull.
—
The shape of the
gauges is right
out of 1979.The Kia Telluride is aimed as
high as its namesake town.The Kia Telluride is rare. Not small-batch-
production, costs-as-much-as-a-mansion, exotic-
fasterossa rare. But rare in how ridiculously good
it is. And if you’re a regular reader, you know how
rarely we make such statements.
Like all breakthrough products, the Tellu-
ride upends the segment. Its arrival reminds us
of when the Lexus LS400 and the Acura NSX
were introduced. Like the Telluride, those cars
reshaped the landscape, elevated their brands, and
led to a run on Maalox from Stuttgart to Detroit.
This is the part where we admit to preaching
that buyers in the three-row segment would be
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that no minivan can match. There are standard
luxury-car touches like an acoustically insulated
windshield, plus optional niceties such as a micro-
suede headliner, acoustically insulated front-door
glass, a head-up display, heated and ventilated
`RNa`V[aUR¼_`aand second rows, and an intui-
tive widescreen infotainment system. There’s
quality in everything you see and touch. What
would we change? Hmm. That’s not easy. The
bezels around the gauges look lame, and heated
armrests like those in the Mercedes S-class would
be nice. What can we say? We’re spoiled.
But Kia hasn’t built this house on features
and amenities alone. At 70 mph, the Telluride
is quieter than a Land Rover Range Rover, and
it goes down the road with the hushed ride of
SUVs that cost tens of thousands more. In a
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aspirated V- 6 sounds like an anachronism, but
it’s not. Instant response and smoothness will
never get old. If the Kia lacks the sporty dynam-
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make peace with that because the Telluride is con-Caste Disrupter