Comparison Tests
We drive south to Ohio’s Hocking Hills often, not only for the challenging byways but also for the roadside amusements. You’ll find Martha Hitler Park and the Pumpkin Festival in Circleville, which is also home to the Ted Lewis Museum. Lewis was the vaudevillian who called himself “the high-hatted tragedian of song” and whose signature line was, “Is everybody happy?” In Laurelville, there’s the world’s best cider from Bob Bowers. There’s the Washboard Music Festival in Logan. And on the way down, we can stop in homely Waldo to dine at the G&R Tavern, famous for its bologna sandwiches ($3.50), bologna salad ($2.50), and braunschweiger sandwiches ($2.25). On a good day, the G&R serves 180 fried-bologna sandwiches, each featuring a half-inch slab of ground, smoked sausage hidden beneath a crush of pickles, tomato wedges, lettuce, and a hunk of onion large enough to choke a longshoreman. Everything is served on paper plates, including the half-pound slices of cream pie. And yes, they pronounce it baloney.
As it turned out, the baloney theme was appropriate, because we were evaluating salt-of-the-earth Everyman family sedans, a segment that accounts annually for two million U.S. sales. Each of our competitors was fitted with a DOHC 16-valve four-cylinder engine and an automatic transmission. We aimed for base prices in the $22,000 vicinity, although we wound up with a $4300 variance—a sum sufficient to purchase 1228 bologna sandwiches.
We conducted a similar comparo as recently as February 2007. Since then, however, new players have alighted, notably the Chevrolet Malibu, the eighth-generation Honda Accord, and a freshened Hyundai Sonata. The Chrysler Sebring that we included in the last outing was this time replaced by its Dodge Avenger sibling.
During a photo shoot, we were ominously scrutinized by at least 100 turkey vultures perching in nearby trees and atop a state-park lodge, all glaring with either curiosity or evil intent. Many had spread their wings. With a wingspan of six feet, they were a little threatening. Shifting from foot to foot, the vultures appeared to be evaluating the most tender portions of our anatomies.
Our purpose in the hills was to determine whether seven ubiquitous Wonder-bread family sedans featured any meat in the middle. It seemed like the vultures’ purpose was to determine whether we were full of baloney.
