'Crazy' idea: great cars

With the biggest crowd of the first day of the Los Angeles Auto Show at the L.A. Convention Center gathered around the Ford display to see the 2010 Fusion and Fusion Hybrid, music boomed over the public address system: "Yeah I was out of touch / but it wasn't because I didn't know enough / I just knew too much. . . . "

There was something fitting about the event's theme song, "Crazy," by Gnarls Barkley.

Once the song stopped, North American head Mark Fields explained that while Ford might not have made the kind of cars people wanted to buy in the past, things were changing. The Fusion, he said, is exactly the kind of car people want now. "These are challenging times . . . but what will power us through, very simply, is great cars."

Ford's sales are down 18% this year, so the company apparently hasn't been making exactly what the consumer has been yearning for up until now. "We've made tremendous progress in the last few years," Fields said.

With Ford's chief executive in Washington lamenting that his company was nearly as bad off as General Motors and Chrysler, Ford's messaging might seem, well, a bit crazy. But if the Fusion is as good as Ford promises, it could be a step in the right direction. After all, the hybrid gets 39 miles per gallon in the city, or, according to Fields, 700 miles on a tank of gas in city driving.

How many cars can get that on two tanks of fuel?

-- Ken Bensinger

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Resale values

Kelley Blue Book, the ubiquitous guide to new and used vehicle information and pricing, has released its annual list of best resale value awards for the 2009 model year to coincide with the auto show.

The best resale brand for the 2009 model year was Honda, which had the most vehicles with the best resale value. Toyota was second, followed by Volkswagen.

No U.S. brand made the top 10. The list recognizes vehicles for their "projected retained value five years from now."

The 2009 winners by category: compact pickup: Toyota Tacoma; full-size pickup: Toyota Tundra; crossover: Honda CR-V; luxury crossover: BMW X5; hybrid crossover: Toyota Highlander Hybrid; SUV: Jeep Wranger; luxury SUV: Audi Q7 Quattro; hybrid SUV: Chevrolet Tahoe; high-performance car: Nissan GT-R; hybrid car: Honda Civic Hybrid; compact car: Mini Cooper; mid-size car: Lexus IS; full-size car: Cadillac CTS; luxury car: Audi A5; Van: Honda Odyssey.

-- Whitney Friedlander

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Jetta goes green