Ford Fiesta

Even without the sparkly green paint we took to calling metallic Kermit, the Ford Fiesta would have turned heads. Its shape jolts a conservative American sensibility, which, for the most part, equates tiny vehicles with cheap, bland and throwaway. Recently, cars such as the Mini Cooper have done much to chip away at that perception, but eons of crap are hard to overcome. Think infamous, such as the Yugo, or utterly forgettable, such as Ford's own Aspire--if you can remember it.

The Fiesta instead celebrates the possible in the B-segment, without succumbing to lowest-common-denominator assumptions. Europeans have long understood that small doesn't have to mean bad; they bank on it, in fact, many paying a premium for tiny cars packed to the gills with goodness and fun. And style.