Life is full of tough choices. It sometimes feels like we can't get through the day without making some important decision that will affect us for the rest of our lives. Would it make sense to move our 401(K) into an aggressive small cap investment and potentially lose our life savings, or should we leave it in a hum-drum money market account and watch all of our friends move into Gold Coast condos upon retirement while we are stuck kicking ourselves for not having had the gumption to lay it on the line while we were younger? Should we shuck the corporate job, buy a cabin in the woods, and write great poetry like Thoreau only to find that our neighbor is Ted Kaczynski, or should we stay in the rat race and climb up the corporate ladder like a spider monkey only to watch it all slip away because our doctor has forced us into early retirement due to a weakened body from too many years of no sleep, little exercise, and excessive stress? Would we like to see our golden years filled with the smiling faces of wonderful grandchildren, resigned to the fact that being grandparents means first being parents, which means that we'll probably have to drive a minivan, family sedan, or station wagon along the way, or do we forgo parenthood and enjoy the ride in that sexy little Miata or Z3, only to find ourselves insane from loneliness in the twilight of our lives? Yes, life is full of difficult decisions, and while Edmund's can't help you decide what to do with your 401(K) or career path, we can certainly recommend that you have kids, assuming that the only thing holding you back is a desire to keep driving to exciting places in an exciting car.

Four sporty family sedans were scrupulously evaluated before we came to the conclusion that family life and good times behind a steering wheel aren't mutually exclusive. Always careful to provide our loyal readers with a well-considered opinion, we had 10 drivers from various walks of life spend four grueling days driving our assembled fleet of sport sedans. What cars did we decide were worthy of our consideration? Merely some of the most interesting vehicles that Europe, Japan, and the United States have to offer. By the way, we tried to represent a large financial cross-section, so the prices of our cars run from less than $20,000 to nearly $30,000.

Representing Europe is the new-for-`98 Volkswagen Passat. The all-new Mazda 626 and the Nissan Maxima, an old favorite, are in Japan's corner. Weighing in for the United States is the freshened Ford Contour. With the exception of the Volkswagen Passat, which has a turbocharged inline four-cylinder engine, the vehicles in our comparison test all feature six cylinders arranged in a V-type configuration. All of the cars came to us with a 5-speed manual transmission. Power ratings vary from 150 ponies in our VW, all the way up to 190 ponies in the Nissan Maxima. Torque ratings likewise show great disparity, VW again resting at the bottom of the pile with 155 pound-feet of twist action, and Nissan rising to the top of the heap once more with 205 pound-feet of torque.

Differences in engine performance are just the first of the contrasts we found when evaluating these fine cars. Unique suspensions, tires, seats, steering gear, clutch plates, shift levers, and the myriad other components that allow drivers to distinguish one car from another were all weighed against each other in a difficult attempt to name one car the winner. While you may question some of our findings, rest assured that the rankings which follow were arrived at after countless hours of argument, blackmail, and threat of personal injury among our 10 cantankerous judges.