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Ward's releases 10 Best Interiors list for 2014

While we're still a ways off from the automotive awards season proper, where things like North American Car and Truck of the Year, Motor Trend's Car of the Year and Car and Driver's Ten Best are named, that doesn't mean there aren't trophies being handed out to deserving automakers. Ward's 10 Best Interiors being one of them.
As the name might imply, the magazine focuses on the very best interior treatments in the US market. Whereas some awards purposely exclude extreme, high-dollar offerings, Ward's considers them - the only requirement is that a vehicle has a "new or significantly redesigned interior."
Ward's offered up the list of winners in simple, alphabetical order, and it only seems fair to do the same:

2024 GMC Canyon AT4X AEV Edition First Drive Review: The business-class Bison

McALLISTER, Mont. – Not far from MontanaÂ’s Ramshorn Peak is a beautiful body of water known as South Meadow Creek Lake. It sits just a hair below 9,000 feet and offers beautiful views of the surrounding highlands and — if youÂ’re lucky and the lighting is just right — a clear line of sight to Big Sky Country. To hear the locals tell it, you canÂ’t get there in a pickup truck. Apparently, to a GMC engineer, that comes across as an open challenge. And so I found myself in the two-horse town of McAlllister (not far from Bozeman), chilly in the fog of an early October morning, inspecting a line of GMCÂ’s midsize trucks in their hardest of hardcore variations. One half of the fleet was made up of the standard 2023 Canyon AT4X finished in a beautiful scarlet red; the other half, 2024 Canyon AT4 AEV Editions in a menacing gray that matched the dreary morning sky. Yep, that AEV. The Canyon AT4X is an already-capable little trail monster with all the off-road bells and whistles you could possibly ask for. ItÂ’s a virtual mechanical twin to the new Chevrolet Colorado ZR2, in fact, down to the 2.7-liter four-cylinder that produces 310 horsepower and a whopping 430 lb-ft of torque. Naturally, American Expedition Vehicles managed to turn that dial up to 11. More on that later. Canyon AT4X 3 View 32 Photos To the locals' point above, off-road trucks have existed for quite some time (just ask Marty McFly), but it has only been since their rise in popularity as mainstream commuters that the dedicated four-wheelinÂ’ pickup has really come into its own. The “you canÂ’t get there from here” Maine attitude at Bozeman latitudes betrays somewhat old-school notions about four-wheeling — and the fact that just about everybody in town owns some sort of ATV or side-by-side. The formula used to be pretty simple: You take the shortest SUV frame youÂ’ve got, add big stick axles to the front and rear, and then jack the thing up as high as you can without it falling over at the first sign of an incline. TodayÂ’s torque-monster engines have turned that on its ear. More torque means you can turn bigger tires, and what do bigger tires do? Well, among other things, they lift your truck off the ground. Shove enough tire under a truck and no matter where youÂ’re talking about, you can indeed get there from here. At its core, AT4X isnÂ’t groundbreaking.

Chevrolet Suburban Luggage Test: How much fits behind the third row?

From the very beginning of doing these luggage tests, I specifically had no intention of doing one for the Chevy Suburban or any extended-length full-size SUVs. Quite simply, there was no question that my six suitcases were going to fit behind the third row. And not only that, I was pretty confident there'd be a ton of space left over, much as there is in mid- and full-size two-row SUVs.  And yet, you know what vehicle I've received more requests for cargo-related information about over the years? That's right, the Chevrolet Suburban. Sure, it's not exactly BTS fan mail volumes, but it's more than anything else. Apparently, people want to know how much fits in the back of a Suburban (or GMC Yukon XL ... or Cadillac Escalade ESV). So, when a Suburban popped up in the press fleet I decided to finally give the people what they want.  As a reminder, this is the amount of cargo space behind the THIRD row of a Suburban. Chevrolet says this is 41.5 cubic feet, and it sure looks like it.  For the record, the most stuff I've ever put into the back of a three-row vehicle is a Honda Odyssey, which has 32.8 cubic feet of space. I never did another minivan after that, for reasons effectively described above. And no one has asked for it. Now, because I'm greedy, I lifted up the floor to see if there's any underfloor space. Wow, there is! Theoretically, it could lower the floor a bit and allow for even more stuff, but the floor's hinges don't allow it. Unlike those in a BMW that can be propped into an upright position, these'll just drop the floor back down again. That's OK, I won't use this then. Let's get to the bags. As with every Luggage Test, I use two midsize roller suitcases that would need to be checked in at the airport (26 inches long, 16 wide, 11 deep), two black roll-aboard suitcases that just barely fit in the overhead (24L x 15W x 10D), and one smaller green roll-aboard that fits easily (23L x 15W x 10D). I also include my wife's fancy overnight bag just to spruce things up a bit (21L x 12W x 12D). So yeah, it all fits. No surprise there. In fact, there's even more room leftover than I anticipated.  Let's go to the extra (and imaginary) items, then! First up, the trusty 38-quart Coleman cooler. This added to my bags, plus maybe a duffle bag, is what big "compact" SUVs like the Kia Sportage and Toyota RAV4 can manage.