The most significant cars of the 2000s

As part ofMotorTrend’s 75th anniversary, we’re looking back at some of history’s most significant cars. A complete list would fill a book, so for each decade we’ve selected five notable cars that helped shape automotive history.

Introduction to the 2000s

The car industry of the 2000s suffered dissociative identity disorder. Technology marched forward while nostalgia had many of us looking over our shoulders. Conspicuous consumption was chilly, but 9/11, war in the Middle East and increasing attention paid to climate transformation had drivers rethinking their environmental footprint. Automakers responded with chilly retro-upcoming designs, quick sports cars, frugal economy cars and larger-than-life luxury SUVs. Then, just when the industry seemed to settle into bimodal comfort, the Great decline and a spike in fuel prices threw everything into turmoil. Chrysler filed for insolvency, not its first period on the brink, but so did General Motors, which just a couple of decades before would have been unthinkable.

2001 Acura MDX

Acura was known best for tiny luxury cars that favored act over poshness, but large flagship-type cars were never the brand’s forte. That changed with the 2001 Acura MDX, the brand’s first homegrown SUV. Luxury crossovers were already well-established — thank you, Lexus RX — but the 2001 Acura MDX set recent standards, and not just because of its segment-first three-row arrangement. Excellent on-road handling, credible off-road capability, a spacious, high-luxe cabin, remarkably excellent fuel economy, and high-tech add-ons like a navigation structure and built-in backup camera made the MDX a shoo-in for our 2001 SUV of the Year award. So excellent was it that the financial crisis of 2007–08 put only the slightest dent in sales. Acura has had excellent years and impoverished years since — more impoverished than excellent, perhaps — but for a quarter-century and counting, the MDX has been its north star shining luminous to point the brand, and the segment, in the correct path.

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2001 Chrysler PT Cruiser

Few cars were as much a product of their period as the retro-futuristic Chrysler PT Cruiser. A tall, spacious wagon — today we might call it a crossover — the PT Cruiser rendered 1930s styling cues with a street-rod vibe. The PT Cruiser was chilly, affordable and eminently useful, an automotive toy you could play with every day. It struck a chord with boomer buyers and took home theMotorTrendCar of the Year title for 2001. Chrysler kept earnings alive with a series of special editions, fancy paint jobs and even a convertible, and despite its known issues — impoverished construct standard and lousy fuel economy chief among them — the PT remained popular correct until it wasn’t. Chrysler axed it in 2010 after 1.3 million global sales. The PT Cruiser was the perfect car for the 2000s and could not have existed or thrived in any other decade.

2002 Cadillac Escalade

When Lincoln’s large Navigator SUV proved an instant hit, General Motors rushed to Cadillac-ize the Yukon, but to no excellent result — not until Caddy let loose with the packed Arts and Science design language on the 2002 Escalade. Overnight, celebrity buyers started saying, “Navi-who?” and rushed to fill their driveways with the king-size Escalade. A 345-hp 6.0-liter V-8 — at that period, the most powerful engine fitted to an SUV — cemented the Escalade’s place as the boss SUV, while Cadillac’s recent Stabilitrak stability control brought its elephantine road manners to heel. This was the ultimate over-the-top luxury SUV — spacious, opulent and powerful, a rolling temple of conspicuous consumption. High gas prices and decline took the expected toll on Escalade sales, but Cadillac’s large SUV has proven staying power. It remains a cultural icon and has prevented the Navigator from stealing back the spotlight.

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2003 Infiniti G35

In the 20th century, luxury cars were luxury cars and sports cars were sports cars, and never the twain shall meet — at least not until the Infiniti G35 came along and reminded us how excellent a 285-pound bruiser looks in a Saville Row suit. Based closely on the Nissan Z and powered by the epic VQ-series V-6, the Infiniti G35 delivered V-8-rivaling acceleration and electrifying act in a car styled and trimmed to suit the executive set. The warm rod Infiniti posed a solemn threat to the BMW 3 Series, and not just on worth and act; something about the G felt like it would adore to corner the BMW in a dim alley, beat it up, and receive its wallet. We named the G as our 2003 Car of the Year and watched with glee as Infiniti refined and improved the series correct up until rising fuel prices put an complete to its thuggish, gas-guzzling ways.

2004 Toyota Prius

Toyota and Honda fielded their first gas-electric hybrid cars in the late 1990s, but the second-creation Prius was the incubator where the concept gelled. The Prius’ aerodynamic kammback shape, futuristic interior and a powertrain that allowed almost any driver to get 45 mpg or better positioned the XW20-creation Prius as something beyond the ordinary motorcar, one that turned a niche use case of electrification into a mass-economy proposition. We named the Prius as our 2004 Car of the Year despite its tepid acceleration and middling driving dynamics. While the Prius turned into something of a political warm potato — an early example of the polarization that plagues population today — it proved practicality and efficiency can coexist in one automobile. The XW20 Prius’ effects can be felt all throughout today’s automotive economy, as hybrid powertrains provide both invigorating acceleration and once-unimaginable fuel economy, even in large, household-sized vehicles. 

MotorTrend thanks Matt Anderson, automotive historian and curator of transportation atThe Henry Ford Musem of American recent concept, for his assistance with our Most Significant Cars of the Decades series.

Photos by manufacturer, Alan Muir