10 Best Cars of the Past Decade

How does anyone pick the 10 best vehicles of the past 10 years? Fortunately, Kiplinger ranks cars and SUVs every year, picking the best in various price categories based on performance, value and safety। So we combed a decade's worth of our buyer’s guides to find the vehicles that showed up as winners time and time again. When the choices got tough, we gave the nod to iconic vehicles that pioneered a category and have stood the test of time.

If there’s one big takeaway here, it’s that most of these picks are better values today than a decade ago. For example, the Lexus RX 300 sold for $36,150 in 2001; the 2011 RX 350 stickers for just $38,850. That’s a minuscule increase, especially when you consider that the 2001-model price would be $45,914 in inflation-adjusted dollars. Meanwhile, the new models are much safer, more powerful and more fuel-efficient and pack a lot more high-tech content than they did ten years ago.