Ford Betters GM and Chrysler in “Special” Consumer Reports List

The February issue of Consumer Reports is bringing a nice little surprise to Ford and its fans. Apparently, from Detroit's Three Musketeers, Ford currently has the nicest model line-up, according to the magazine. Even though Consumer Reports usually has an April issue when it recommends cars to the public, the editors seemingly singled out eight American vehicles coming out of the Big Three showrooms in this much earlier issue.

The reason for this hurry is of course closely connected to the federal assistance General Motors and Chrysler LLC are currently getting. "We're only about halfway through our testing, so it's not a complete list, but because of the public interest, we thought it would be useful." said David Champion, Consumer Reports chief car tester.

Although the magazine only found two top-rated Detroit Three vehicles, the Chevrolet Malibu V6 LTZ and the Cadillac DTS, the other six winners were all coming out of Ford's stable: the Ford Fusion SEL, Ford Taurus and Taurus X, the Mercury Milan Premier, Mercury Sable and the Lincoln MKZ.

The funny thing is that all six Ford products are based on only two platforms. The even funnier thing is that absolutely no Chrysler products were selected for recommendation.

To be selected for recommendation, a vehicle must score satisfactory in the magazine's tests, be reliable and have a good score in an official federal crash-test or rollover test. Since from the Big Three no Chrysler product made the cut, you can probably guess why by now.

So far so good, except the Consumer Reports reasons for choosing this winning line-up and making it public so early are a little bit sketchy, especially considering what they had to say about Ford Fusion's reliability: "Ford has been doing a lot right on reliability for the past five years," David Champion said. "It's not immediately apparent that the Ford Fusion would be more reliable than the Toyota Camry, but it is, and the Fusion is one of the more reliable family sedans on the market."

In case you didn't get that the first time, the Consumer Reports chief car tester gave a whole lot of praise to an American product detrimental to a Japanese one, without actually comparing them head-on. Professional, isn't it?