2012 is the year the compact finally gets cool, with three cheap, entry-level cars you might actually want to own.

by Ezra Dyer

There’s a fundamental shift afoot in how car companies view their littlest machines. Back in the not-so-distant past, the small-car-as-shitbox was a self-fulfilling pro­phecy: The guiding notion was that Americans buy the biggest cars they can afford; therefore the smallest cars compete wholly on price in a relentless race to the bottom. I had a neighbor who drove an early-Nineties Ford Festiva with 12-inch steel wheels that would have been embarrassing on an East German lawn tractor. Everything about that car suggested that its primary mission was to be so wretched that anyone who laid eyes on it would shudder in revulsion and gravitate toward the more profitable models in the showroom.

This year, 2012, marks the year our least-expensive cars made a decisive move away from the rolling-austerity-measure aesthetic. Why now? I’d wager that in 2008, when crude hit $147 a barrel and the Honda Civic began outselling the Ford F-150, it became clear that there was a robust market for diminutive cars that don’t feel like punishment. And so the Chevy Sonic, Kia Rio 5-Door, and Hyundai Accent belong to a new breed of entry-level cars that are desirable despite their practical virtues.

The Sonic and its Korean cousins — Kia is a division of Hyundai South Korea — proffer above-average power with styling that aspires to something more than generic inoffensiveness. Europeans have been rolling around in suave subcompacts for years, but cheap, good-looking four-doors are still a novel shock on these shores. Subcompact sedans tend to suffer outlandish proportions: all bulbous body with a stubby hood and trunk on either end. The Sonic sedan avoids that trap, particularly when its stance is buffed up with the optional 17-inch wheels. If you’re brave enough to look like a full-fledged Parisian, the five-door hatch wrings maximum utility from the Sonic’s wee wheelbase. But on style alone, my nod goes to the Kia, which takes the Hyundai’s basic shape and chisels it into a high-­waisted hatchback that looks like something out of the Audi portfolio. Which makes sense, since Kia’s head designer, Peter Schreyer, designed Audi’s A3.

Under the hood, the Sonic borrows motors from the larger Cruze, and the Accent and Rio share their propulsion with the Veloster. In the Sonic’s case, it’s like a Lilliputian execution of the formula that begat the original Pontiac GTO: Motor from a big car stuffed into a smaller, lighter car equals fun. The Kia and Hyundai use a direct-injected 1.6-liter four-cylinder, while the Sonic uses either a base 1.8-liter or an optional 1.4-liter turbo. All three motors make 138 horsepower, which is either a strange coincidence or the result of a secret treaty.

You might guess, based on the homogeneous power output, that the three cars drive in similar fashion. But while the Koreans and the base Sonic need some revs before they make their power, the Sonic Turbo surges off the line with casual muscle. That relaxed power connotes sophistication — not a word that normally comes into play when you’re talking about a 1.4-liter engine.

I drove the Sonic hatchback and the Rio on the shattered roads of rural Michigan, and helmed the Accent and Sonic sedan on smooth North Carolina blacktop. Chevy says it diverted some Corvette engineers to help tune the Sonic’s suspension, and based on the Chevy’s all-around comportment, that’s a believable claim. (Maybe some of the Sonic designers can return the favor and work on the Corvette’s interior.) Bounding Tigger-like over Michigan frost heaves, seat heater cranked and satellite radio blaring, the Sonic offers the same basic experience as cars that are much more expensive — turbocharged torque, six-speed manual transmission, 17-inch wheels, your typical power-everything conveniences — but costs less than $18,000. Is it going too far, then, to declare the Sonic, Accent, and Rio victories for the little guy? Perhaps, but I’m doing it anyway. One hundred thirty-eight horsepower to the people!