Smart Cars For Teens 2007 (Ford Fusion)

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In February, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) announced that Ford Motor has made changes to its $18,000 Fusion sedan, and better safety ratings--for front and side protection especially--have resulted. Ford is, of course, delighted about this, and the company's media Web site is now trumpeting "advanced safety" as one of the Fusion's biggest selling points. The IIHS sees improvement in the model, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) gives the Fusion four- and five-star safety ratings across the board. (NHTSA works with a scale of one to five stars.) But safety isn't the only reason the Fusion has made our list of 15 smart cars for teenagers. It is also inexpensive and has good gas mileage (23/31 city/highway, under optimal configurations). It has "very good" accident-avoidance capabilities (Consumer Reports says the most important factors in determining accident-avoidance capability are braking and emergency handling) and "much better than average" predicted reliability, according to the magazine. What's more, it has overall manufacturing quality that is between "about average" and "better than most," according to J.D. Power and Associates. A great choice for teenagers, no doubt. But the Fusion is just one of 15 on this year's list. All offer the market's best combination of value, fuel economy, safety, reliability and quality.