Quick reviews: Honda Accord, Ford Fusion, and Nissan Altima

Half the fun of traveling is avoiding the piles of work you left behind at home. In my case, the pile included write-ups of three important mid-size sedans, the Honda Accord, Ford Fusion, and Nissan Altima. I gave all three cars the same rating -- four out of five stars -- but for different reasons.

It's been a while since I drove a new Honda Accord, and it was a lot more enjoyable than I remembered. The six-speed manual, a new option in EX-V6 sedans for 2006, certainly helped. I own an older Accord with a manual transmission, and it's pretty lousy as far as Honda manuals go; the clutch is grabby and the shifter is clunky. No surprise as few Accords sell with manuals, right? So I was really surprised at how good the 2006 Accord's stick-shift is -- it's one of Hondas best. Loved it, even in heavy traffic.

The Nissan Altima got four stars because it's got lots of power and lots of gadgets. Frankly, I don't know how Nissan manages to sell Maximas with such an excellent (and less expensive) car sitting next to them in the showrooms.

The Ford Fusion was the real surprise. I drove the Fusion's high-end cousin, the Lincoln Zephyr, and was less than impressed. (Fellow test driver Philip Powell had a similar opinion of the Lincoln Zephyr.) So I was amazed at how much I like the Fusion. It's an excellent value -- our tester was packed with equipment and cost less than $24k. The 4-cylinder engine had enough power to keep pace on the freeway, plus it returned great mileage and (since we live in California) PZEV (Partial Zero Emissions Vehicle) emissions. Score one for the Americans -- sort of. The Fusion is the only one of these three that isn't actually built in America. -- Aaron Gold