Sports Sedan Review

Summing up the best sports sedan reviews

Sports sedans are fun yet practical, reviews say -- and accordingly, we found no shortage of experts willing to get behind the wheel. Edmunds.com, Car and Driver, ConsumerReports.org, Motor Trend and Automobile Magazine are particularly helpful -- they thoroughly test most cars on the market before picking the best. So do Road & Track, ConsumerGuide.com and Cars.com.

In-depth reviews at Autoblog.com and TheTruthAboutCars.com do a great job of describing how each car looks, feels and drives -- and they're also fun to read. We combined subjective opinions from all of these critics and more (consulting about two dozen review sources overall) with hard data on safety, reliability and fuel economy from government and nonprofit organizations like the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, SaferCar.gov and FuelEconomy.gov.

Sports sedans are a category that overlaps with family cars and luxury cars. For this report, we selected four-door models that are marketed as sporty cars, and only those with an entry-level price of about $30,000 up to about $70,000, though some performance variants rocket higher. Sports sedans generally have a more aggressive look, a more powerful engine, a stiffer suspension and more responsive handling than a typical family sedan. If ride comfort is your top priority, take a look at our report on family cars, which generally are less expensive.

Experts say the sports sedan category is packed with winners -- including a variety of runners-up that are great cars in their own right, just not as spectacular as favorites like the 2011 BMW 3 Series sedan (Base MSRP: $34,600 to $44,150) and 2011 Mercedes-Benz E-Class sedan (Base MSRP: $49,400 to $59,600). However, two brands -- Lexus and Lincoln -- consistently come up short in their sports sedan attempts, experts say. 

Sometimes they come close to the top, as with the high-performance 2011 Lexus IS F (Base MSRP: $60,660). Testers say it's fast and it's got moves, and a revised suspension does away with last year's bone-jarring ride -- but, as TheTruthAboutCars.com's Jack Baruth points out, there's no way it should cost more than the top-rated BMW M3 (Base MSRP: $55,900).

Critics say there's not too much wrong with the 2012 Lincoln MKZ (Base MSRP: $34,645 to $36,535) and the 2011 Lincoln MKS (Base MSRP: $41,500 to $48,390), except they can't shake the feeling that they've just paid 40 grand or so for a gussied-up Ford (Fusion and Taurus, respectively).

Sometimes cars come up well short, as with the 2011 Lexus GS (Base MSRP: $46,900 to $55,370). Critics consistently say the GS is competent, but it takes the sport out of "sports sedan."

"Lexus should include a PlayStation 3 with every GS350 they sell the public, so the new owners can take their new vehicle for a spin around the Nurburgring in 'Gran Turismo,'" says Michael Freed at TheTruthAboutCars.com. "The driving experience wouldn't change much." An all-new GS is on the way,  and Lexus says it hopes that the new model will dispel that sort of criticism.