When you talk to car enthusiasts, it's clear that they spend a lot of energy trying to figure out the best car for every possible situation.
It's only in a group of car enthusiasts, for instance, that you'll hear the term "daily driver." For normal people, they just have a "car," and maybe a "second car" for their "wife." But car enthusiasts separate their daily driver from their other car, or maybe their other cars, because each vehicle in a car enthusiast's garage has a different purpose.
There's a track car — a car only owned by enthusiasts dedicated solely to track use. And there might be a truck and a trailer to pull this track car. So now you have the daily driver, the track car, the truck, and the trailer.
Or maybe you have a winter beater. A car you use during the winter to keep the bad weather, road salt, potholes, and debris away from your pride and joy. This winter beater is usually an old Subaru, or a truck, or something you wouldn't be caught dead driving in normal circumstances. But alas, it's another car that fills another purpose.
Some car enthusiasts have a commuter car; a car that sucks miles, that keeps their fun car away from the daily grind; a car that they can use for fuel economy and hauling kids while keeping their "fun car" safe for weekend use. I know a guy who once had an E60 BMW M5 in the garage and a Toyota Prius as a commuter car.
And it goes, on and on and on. Some people have an off-roader. A truck for hauling. A classic they keep in the garage. A drag racer. Car enthusiasts like cars, so they have a lot of them. It only makes sense.
But what if you could only have one?
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I'm asking the question: what's the best all-around car if you had to have only one single car? What if you couldn't have the track car, and the winter beater, and the commuter cars, and the off-roader? What if you had to stop and choose only one specific vehicle that does it all?
For me, this question is impossibly hard to answer. Your mind immediately goes to high-performance SUVs like the BMW X5 M or the Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT-8, because they combine sports car performance with SUV practicality. But in doing so, they kind of lose the best aspects of both: the X5 M and Grand Cherokee SRT8 have such thin performance tires that they're hardly capable off-roaders. And they're so bulky and heavy that they don't really go around corners. They're good all-rounders, but not great ones; better in theory than in reality.
So then you start thinking of practical sports cars, like the Porsche 911 or the BMW 6 Series. But these things aren't really family cars: both have back seats that could barely be comfortable for a notecard. And by offering back seats at all, they kind of compromise the true "sports car" nature of the sports car that's honed so effectively by cars like the Mazda MX-5 Miata and the Honda S2000.
So what's the answer?
I nominate the Volvo V60 T6, which seems to combine good things about every possible type of vehicle. Under the hood, there's a 3.0-liter turbocharged 6-cylinder engine that makes 325 horsepower. Performance, check. It's also a wagon, or at least a long hatchback, so there's some room in back for both people and luggage. Interior space, check. And there's standard all-wheel drive in the T6 model, along with an insane amount of typical Volvo safety features. All-weather capability, check. Safety, check.
But of course, there are many fine answers to this question, and I'm sure that not all of them will be the Ford Crown Victoria. So I say to you, what exactly do you think is the best all-around car?
The post QOTD: What's the Best All-Around Car? appeared first on The Truth About Cars.
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