Cars: Best of the best, 2007

Consumer Reports has a different approach to rating owner satisfaction. They simply ask car owners if, next time around, they would purchase the same type of car they now own.

Asking that question yields entirely different results from J.D. Powers' feature-by-feature checklist approach. That's because car buying is a largely emotional process and Consumer Reports' simple "Would you buy the same car again" taps into the emotional attachment owners have to their cars.

The cars that tend to rank highest are those with some sort of strong performance attribute. Ranking just behind the Prius were the BMW 335i, the Porsche Boxster and Cayman and the Chevrolet Corvette.

The Prius is a "high performance" model in its own right, of course, but it's performance of a different type. And, like those cars, the Prius makes a strong statement about its owners driving preferences.