Chevy's rationale makes sense: Soccer moms across the country are about to turn in their leased Trailblazers and Yukons. They've seen budgets battered by gas prices, but they still have to have something that can tote the brood around. With 7 or 8 passenger seating, a tall ride height, generous cargo room, and a fairly low load floor, the Traverse attempts to give them a reason to drive back out of the Chevy dealership in something new — something new that isn't a minivan. Chevy needs the Traverse pretty badly, considering they don't have squat between Malibu and Trailblazer.

Although Traverse sits on the same Lambda platform upon which the Saturn Outlook, GMC Acadia, and Buick Enclave ride, and it's arguably the least successful styling exercise of the four, perhaps due to the fact Chevy wasn't initially slated to get a Lambda vehicle — it looks hurried. The exterior stylists described their goal as creating a crossover with broad, global appeal. Translated, that means, "we tried to please everyone." As is typically the case when you set out to offend no one, you end up exciting no one. That's definitely the case here. Traverse looks as long as a school bus, and the front end comes off as heavy, with a cow-catcher sized air dam begging to scrape the nearest curb.

Inside, Traverse mimics Chevy's successful Malibu with a sweeping dual-cove theme for the dash and materials featuring good texture and a solid feel. Available SmartSlide seating for the middle row causes the captain's chairs to glide forward with the pull of a lever, allowing good access to the surprisingly comfortable third row seats. But the lack of a sliding side door means piling tweeners in and out without bashing into the cars beside you will never be as easy as it is with a van.

On the road course GM set out for us, Traverse displays the good manners we've come to expect from the Lambda platform. It has decent acceleration for its size, good isolation from road, wind, and engine noise, and corners pretty flatly give the size and weight. The stability control system does an admirable job of avoiding cones in wet and dry conditions, and it handles Michigan-style bumps and potholes with aplomb. But, since GM is touting the Chevy's towing ability (5,800 lbs.), it was surprising to feel how much the Traverse was affected while pulling a 4,000-lb boat/trailer combo. The tail felt unstable at moderate speeds, and there was never any doubt about the chunk of weight on the aft end.

So where does this leave the Chevy Traverse? Chances are it'll sell well, considering there are still folks out there who won't drive anything but a Chevy, and the fact the Traverse is light-years better than the Uplander and Trailblazer. Chevy's pricing is going to be key: If it's in the same ballpark as the Outlook, we'd guess GM aficionados will be rethinking Saturn or upgrading to an Acadia. Most of the other buyers will be across town scoping out the Ford Flex.

Ford PR Flack:"We wanted to give the Flex what we call a 'wow' factor."
Random Auto Journalist: "Wow, can I quote you on that?"

I don't know when it happened, but at some point in its history, reviewing cars became the domain of the boring, the middle aged and the overweight. It also lost its way, becoming yet another tool for the industry to market its products (something akin to long-form, text-based advertising), rather than a critical method for helping consumers make informed decisions. It's now commonplace to see PR-speak quoted in place of actual insight.

Which brings us to the wow factor. Picked up by your typical auto journalist (though this being the jean shorts and Oakley Eye Jackets breed rather than the slightly more common blue button down and khakis variety) it causes both Ray and I to choke on our lunches, desperately trying to maintain some semblance of polite facial expression. Full Disclosure: a member of the Ford PR team offered to cut up my free lunch for me, I declined, but out of embarrassment, not integrity.

It's not that the Flex isn't good looking. It genuinely is, to our minds it's the best designed Ford since the GT, completely banishing memories of the depressingly bland Taurus X, the car the Flex is based on under its slick skin.

And it does have a wow factor, even if it makes me cringe writing that. The Flex's look at once captures everything good and romantic about American cars while eschewing the bad and the boring. You don't look at it and think SUV or minivan; you look at it and think, "Wow, that's a pretty nice looking car." In person, it also looks surprisingly small. Like the Taurus X it sits somewhere between a wagon and SUV in height and is surprisingly large once you climb inside.

No, our problem isn't necessarily with the use of the word 'wow,' it's with the lack of critical thinking that takes place in the average car reviewer's mind. The Flex is ostensibly the vehicle Ford should have built in 2005 instead of the bland Freestyle-cum-Taurus X, but at the time, it lacked the chutzpah to do so. Pressed, a Ford representative will admit this, but pressed further, they'll also admit that they don't know what they're going to do with the Taurus X now (they'll keep selling it as a cheaper alternative for a couple of years before quietly killing it off). And we just don't see much wow in any of that.

But style aside, is a rebodied Taurus X the right car for right now? We're not sure. As a people carrier it's equal parts brilliant and flawed. Brilliant: the doors that wrap around the lower sill, making ingress easy for the old, the feeble and the short; the four sunroofs; Sync; Ford's new SatNav system, which just became the best on the market; the driving position that's the perfect compromise between sedan and SUV; the incredibly quiet interior. Flawed: the third row seats are tiny, much smaller than a Buick Enclave's; the doors don't slide; Ford's 3.5-liter V6 mated to this 6-speed auto is still the worst combination on sale today, delivering neither performance nor economy.

It's equally flawed when considered as an emotional purchase. According to Ray, it drives exactly like a Taurus X, which is to say depressingly adequately, which doesn't compensate for the fuel consumption, 16/22 for the AWD version is too SUV-like to wow us. Nor does the stylish exterior keep its promises inside. While the front seat passengers are treated to a reasonably swanky dash of higher quality than that available in the Taurus X — I couldn't remove any trim pieces with my fingers alone. Full Disclosure: this is a hobby of mine — from the front seats back the interior is exactly like that of the donor car.

There's also some quality issues inside. While the primary dash surfaces are covered in decent plastic, secondary surfaces on the transmission tunnel are very low rent. Worst of all, start feeling around and sharp plastic edges abound. In the couple of minutes Ray and I spent looking, we found edges sharp enough to cut behind the center console's fascia, on the door trim and especially in the sunroof surrounds, reach up there with care kiddies.

What this all comes down to is a vehicle that we wouldn't be embarrassed to be seen in, but not one we'd want to own or drive on a regular basis. For the $42,000 as-tested price, we'd expect a little more wow than that.

Suitability Parameters:
Speed Merchants: No
Fashion Victims: No
Treehuggers: No
Mack Daddies: No
Tuner Crowd: No
Hairdressers: No
Penny Pinchers: No
Euro Snobs: No
Working Stiffs: Yes
Technogeeks: No
Poseurs: No
Soccer Moms: Yes
Nascar Dads: No
Golfing Grandparents: Yes

Also Consider:
• Toyota Highlander
• Toyota 4runner
• Ford Explorer
• GMC Acadia
• Hyundai Veracruz
• Mazda CX-9
• A vasectomy

Vitals:
• Manufacturer: Honda
• Model tested: Pilot EX 4WD
• Model year: 2009
• Base Price: N/A
• Price as Tested: N/A
• Engine type: 3.5-liter SOHC 24-valve i-VTEC V6
• Horsepower: 250 @ 5,700 RPM
• Torque: 253@ 4,800 RPM
• Red line: 6,300 RPM
• Transmission: five-speed automatic
• Curb Weight: 4,498 lbs
• LxWxH: 190.9" x 78.5" x 72.7"
• Wheelbase: 109.2"
• Tires: 245/65/R17
• Drive type: 4WD
• 0 - 60 mph: 7.5 seconds (est)
• 1/4-mile: n/a
• Top speed: N/A
• EPA Fuel economy city/highway: 16/22 MPG
• NHTSA crash test rating: n/a

Also see:

• 2008 Honda Pilot, Part One

• 2008 Honda Pilot, Part Two

You see, with up to six or seven beefy bloggers, plus the occasional girly man (I'm raising my hand here) to haul around, most of the sexy sports cars we dream about are ruthlessly inefficient. Requiring Ray — we let him drive, it makes him feel powerful — to make an equivalent number of journeys to the number of people being moved just isn't the best way to start off sixteen hours of live auto show coverage. Aside from the fact that none of us enjoy being there, Ray's full blown borderline OCD has him biting our heads off at the best of times. Throwing cramped quarters into the equation would probably bring about the end of Jalopnik as we know it.

A minivan would probably be best suited to our needs. Designed with nothing but road-going people capacity in mind, they're exactly what we need. The problem is, our vanity (once again, my hand way up in the air) gets in the way. Hence the constant stream of SUVs, they provide the utility without making us look like we're on the way to a sci-fi convention, Hardigree excepted. We know we're not kidding anyone — the closest we usually get to off-roading is when we get lost in downtown Detroit — but in the unbelievably egotistical world of automotive journalism (we won't call it an industry as that would suggest something productive is, on the whole, achieved by those involved) trucks allow us to cling to whatever shred of cred we still have. At least until we get drunk and pick fights with Angus MacKenzie that is.

Those trucks usually take the form of some variant of the Suburban/Yukon/Escalade platform. An inefficient use of space if we ever saw one. Not only do they only offer cramped accommodation for seven, but they're also larger outside than Ray's apartment. We like them mostly because GM will hand them over at the merest hint of a phone call. And because we think they lend our badly dressed, overweight asses some sort of class. Something that's lost the second Travis exposes his crack attempting to climb into the way back seats.

Not only are these trucks ruthlessly non-reformed of us, but they're also a stupid choice, never delivering on their promised utility. This is where the Pilot comes in. Possibly the most unassuming car we've ever come across, and by that we mean it looks so bland we actually have no opinion on its design, it is nevertheless ridiculously practical. Here, in the footprint of a Highlander, you have eight seats, enough interior capacity to carry a stack of plywood sheets, enough cup holders to hold a week's worth of spilled coffee and skittles, and fuel economy that manages to creep above 20mpg, depending of course on none of us actually being allowed to drive it that is

The new Pilot manages to make all other crossovers, and certainly every SUV ever look ridiculous by somehow actually delivering on the utility they've always promised but never delivered. It's safe, it tows, it carries eight, you could move house in it, and it drives well. It's even good off road. Imagine that. This is great news to tens of thousands of American families with the good sense to buy one, but bad for us. Not just because Gawker's too cheap to ever actually shell out for a car, but because, caught up in our own fantasies of performance and image, we'll never be smart enough to buy one ourselves. We'll be missing out. Honest.