7th Place

Some vehicles seem to defy logic. One such ride is the 2006 Lexus RX 400h, at least in the eyes of half of our editors; the other half rank it high based on styling, luxury, and performance. Hmm. Could there be any better car-based definition of oxymoron than a performance hybrid?

Driving a Lexus RX 400h pits its driver’s good and evil sides against each other. Dig deep into the 268-horsepower V6 and promises of 33 mpg city, 28 mpg highway and 30 mpg combined will be left unfulfilled, or go for fuel economy and forsake the performance aspects of your $44,000 SUV. Those are figures for the front-wheel-drive model; opt for the $46,000 four wheeler and get ratings of 31 mpg city, 27 mpg highway, and 29 mpg combined. Every RX 400h comes with a standard continuously variable automatic transmission and Toyota’s Hybrid Synergy Drive system.

Ignore the fun factor packed behind the accelerator, and the Lexus RX 400h may be the luxury buyer’s best bet for efficiency and utility. Yeah, good luck with that.