Mazda – Speedy Daddy

The Best Cars and SUVs of 2017

For the second year in a row, the New York Daily News has announced its annual Daily News Autos (DNA) Awards. What’s that got to do with Speedy Daddy, you might ask? Good question.

As the editor of the newspaper’s Autos section (and a contributor to other publications), I am proud to have instituted this awards program in 2016, and I am thrilled that the Daily News elected to repeat the DNA Awards for 2017. While several of my own selections did not make the final cut this year, those vehicles that earned the most votes from the 8-person jury, and by extension won the award, are absolutely worthy of your consideration.

What follows is a selection of those vehicles, the ones that are worthy of a Speedy Daddy recommendation. I’ve listed them here in alphabetical order, along with some of the reasons cited by our jury for selecting them for the win.

Autonomy is Right Around the Corner, Yet Car Companies are Doubling Down on Driving Fun

Can a Toyota Camry legitimately be described as fun to drive? Toyota thinks so, and expects this to come to pass when the redesigned 2018 Camry arrives later this year.

The next-generation Camry is built on Toyota’s new global vehicle architecture, designed from the ground up to improve driving dynamism. Chairman Akio Toyoda, himself a fan of taking the long way home, has decreed that Toyotas and Lexuses must be more than just high-quality, dependable, and efficient vehicles. They must spark emotion, they must be enjoyable to drive, and they must be aspirational rather than an appliance.

Toyota is not alone. Multiple automakers are flexing their engineering muscles in order to appeal to people for whom the journey is just as much fun as the destination. Clearly, if you are a driving enthusiast, now is a great, if disconcerting, time to be alive.