Jalopnik's Best10 Cars Of The Decade

Leave the minivans to the buff books, the sales stars to the wire services, and the hybrids to the green freaks. As Best10 week continues, here's Jalopnik's Best10 of the past decade.

Before putting together a list of the cars we dug the most — the stuff from the past decade that most represents Jalopnik — we decided to put down some ground rules:

1. This ain't Jalopnik Fantasy Garage — the car has to be attainable for an ordinary person, or perhaps an ordinary person who has mortgaged a kidney and inherited half of their hometown. MSRP is capped at $200k.

2. No matter what it is, the vehicle in question has to have made us cackle the first time we drove (or, in some cases, saw) it. Fuel mileage and practicality matter, but they aren't what gets us — or, we assume, you — in showrooms. Yes, we're admitting a bias toward the impractical. If you don't agree, come up with your own damn list in the comments.

3. To make the list, a car or truck has to be sold in the United States between 2000 and 2010. It has to be available to the public through an ordinary, open-door dealership. No gray-market imports allowed. No kit cars. Production must exceed 1,000 units per year.

4. Some of these cars are blindingly fast, but this isn't meant to be a list of salt-flat options. Nor is it a list of cars that made a difference in the industry. More than anything, these machines are what motivate car-obsessed freaks like us to find a way, any way, to justify a purchase. In other words, no one buys a hybrid in a fit of passion, so those are automatically out.