Although the 2012 New York International Auto Show pulled the tarps off a wide variety of vehicles, the sheer diversity of 4-door sedans was surprising and enlightening. Some automakers are still playing it safe, but others are pouring real design into these ubiquitous workhorses, investing them with everything from muscle-car aggression to flowing, sports-car chic. Here are the show's debut sedans, ranked from the most timid styling to the gutsiest.
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2012 Lincoln MKZ
The new MKZ can be had as a 2-liter EcoBoost 4-cylinder, a 3.7-liter V6 or a hybrid. It's also luxurious inside, with a spacious 8-inch touch-screen and standard 11-speaker audio system. The problem is everything exterior, starting with the front grille's grin, bisected, as though gap-toothed, by the Lincoln logo. The rest of the frame is forgettable, and the car winds up looking not retro but aged, a relic from Detroit's darker years in the past two decades.
Read: 2013 MKZ Signals Lincoln's Fresh Style
Acura RLX Concept
Concepts are infamous for their unfeasibility. So why is the RLX concept, which Acura is touting as its new flagship, such a modest fantasy? The 2014 model it previews is likely to be an engineering achievement. It debuts the company's Sport Hybrid All-Wheel Drive, with a gas engine powering one axle and an electric motor that powers the other but that can channel additional negative or positive torque to either, giving the V6 more of a V8 kick. It's going to handle like the luxury powerhouse it is, even if the boxy, dated frame telegraphs a more bloodless sort of wealth.
Read: Acura RLX Concept Uveiled in Geneva
2013 Toyota Avalon
On the approach, the revamped Avalon will draw you in. Its low-down, trapezoidal maw of a grille has a supercar yowl. From almost any other angle, however, it's another unassuming Toyota sedan, perfectly in step with the blandly anonymous Camry and Corolla despite its slab sides and steamer trunk of a rear end. The twin exhausts announce its luxury sedan powerplant, an unspecified V6. Options such as the Rear Cross Traffic Alert system, which checks for vehicles as you back up, could help keep it competitive. But with no announced price, it's hard to gauge whether this uniquely American Toyota — the first conceived entirely in the U.S. — will succeed despite its so-so design.
