From the February 1997 issue of Car and Driver.

Let’s say your corporate star is rising. Your cozy cubicle has been swapped for an office with floor-to-ceiling walls and a door. Your annual salary just achieved that magic sixth digit. The paint is drying on your first personalized parking space. Now the question is, what are you going to park on that providential piece of pavement?

You’ve worked hard and earned the right to drive something special. You want to make a statement about who you are and where you’re headed, but you must choose wisely. From time to time, you’ll be the designated driver shuttling your foursome from the three-martini lunch to the links, so a sports car is out. Your spouse already drives a sport-utility vehicle, so a sedan it must be. It would be impolitic to outzoot the boss with a flashier car, so you’ll be shopping in the “near luxury” segment.

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Prepare to spend more than the cost of the fanciest family cars that top out around $28,000 but don’t cross the luxury-tax threshold of $34,000. This way you’ll send the message that you’re a good ol' fiscal conservative, anti-tax type.

Our Buyers Guide lists 17 sedans in that price range. We eliminated five of those based on prior com­parison-test standings and road-test results. We excluded the BMW 3-series and the Mercedes C-class because reason­ably equipped models only evade the luxury tax in four-cylinder guise and their subcompact interior dimensions make them less suitable transportation for four corporate execs. That last argument also ruled out the lovely Audi A4. The remaining nine cars are the cream of this crop. Each should easily satisfy the middle man­ager’s needs and caprices.

Since we last evaluated this class in August 1994, the Acura TL, the Cadillac Catera, and the Infiniti I30 have joined the seg­ment. The Ford Taurus SHO sprouted a V-8, lost its manual trans­mission, and was recast as—in Ford’s words—an “executive express.” The Lexus ES300 and the Mitsubishi Diamante have been redesigned, the Volvo 850GLT has been given a new light-pressure turbocharged engine, and the Saab 900SE V-6 was promoted into our price range. The Mazda Millenia S, with its supercharged Miller-cycle engine, has drifted up in price, so we invited the normally aspirated L model instead.

The field includes seven 24-valve V-6 engines, one turbocharged five-­cylinder, and a 32-valve V-8. Each spins through a four-speed automatic trans­mission (only Infiniti offers a stick). There are two Swedes, one true Yank, one German/Yank (the Opel-derived Cadillac), and five Japanese in the bunch. Each speaks with a slightly different accent of luxury, style, and class.

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Extracted and lightly reformatted for readability. · Source: pt