Cars we wanted to know about most in 2008

December 28, 8:47 AMGreen Car ExaminerEvelyn Kanter

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Which car was the most researched on-line in 2008?  If you guessed the hot hybrid Toyota Prius, you would be wrong, but at lease you would be correct that it's one of the Big Three -- of Tokyo, not Detroit.

The Honda Civic tops the list of the models researched on the Kelley Blue Book website, www.kbb.com.   Sadly for Detroit, not one of the top ten vehicles we researched this year is a GM, Ford or Chrysler model.  Since we usually buy the cars we research, that's a pretty good indicator of why even a $17 billion bail-out won't fix what's wrong with Detroit.

The top three researched models are the Honda Civic, Honda Accord and Toyota Camry, which has been the top three most-researched new-vehicles on kbb.com each year since 2004, in varying order, each year.  That means no American car has been in the top three for the last four years.  Sad.  But, then, neither has any German car. 

Only three Detroit models made the top 15 list -- the Ford Escape, Ford Mustang and the Chevrolet Malibu -- photo on the left.  Nothing from Chrysler, and just one from Stuttgart.  Okay, VW is in Wolfsburg, and BMW is in Munich.  But I digress.  Both the Escape SUV and the re-designed Malibu sedan are available in hybrid versions.  Not surprisingly, models such as the Escape and Malibu are much more popular in their home-state of Michigan, ranking at No. 4 and 5, respectively.

This was the year of $4 a gallon gas, which put a crimp in our summer travel plans.  So, it's also not surprising that the list of most-researched vehicles is dominated by economical, fuel-efficient models.

So here's the kbb.com list of  what we wanted to know more about and maybe buy in this year 2008 so quickly going bye-bye: 

Several of these models are new to the list, such as Chevrolet’s all-new redesigned Malibu,  It made the most impressive leap, jumping 55 places from last year’s rank at 72 to this year’s rank at 17.  Also new to this year’s top 20 are the Honda Fit, up from 35 last year to 15 this year.  The Toyota Yaris, a best-seller in Europe, ranked 23 on last year's list and climbed to 11 this year.  Last year, the Volkswagen Jetta ranked 25, this year 20, and it likely would be higher if the award-winning Jetta TDI diesel -- which won the title of Green Car of the Year at the LA Auto Show in November -- had been available for sale in the US. 

For more articles by Green Car Examiner Evelyn Kanter, visit my website, www.GreatDrives.net.