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Autoblog fan favorite car ads from Super Bowl XLIX

Super Bowl XLIX is in the books, and the New England Patriots emerged victorious. Of course, if you're like us, the big game wasn't so much about the battle between the east coast and west, so much as a fight between the world's automotive advertisers. We collected and collated all of last night's new ads and put them together for you to vote on. And yes, we're limiting this year's contest to last night's new features. That's why you aren't seeing Dodge's epic Wisdom among our collection of commercials, and it's a similar story with Chevrolet's Truck Guy Focus Group series, which highlights the new Colorado. You can still vote for your favorites. We won't be closing the voting on our Super Bowl page, so while the winners and losers are correct as of this writing, it's entirely possible that there could be some changes in the rankings as time goes on. So, without any further ado, here are the winning ads based on your voting. Nissan: With Dad Fiat: Ready For Action Jeep: Beautiful Lands BMW: Newfangled Idea Mercedes-Benz: Fable NASCAR: America Start Your Engines As for those ads that failed to impact you, loyal readers, Toyota was the absolute, undisputed loser. The Japanese brand ran four ads in total – two for Toyota and two for Lexus – and all of them have negative tallies as of this writing. Lexus' Make Some Noise and Lets Play and Toyota's One Bold Choice and My Bold Dad both had very weak showings among the commercials that aired, although they weren't alone. Neither Mazda nor Kia scored particularly well, despite featuring celebrity magic act Penn and Teller and former James Bond, Pierce Brosnan, respectively. Chevrolet was the winner of the losers, as of our writing, recording the fewest downvotes for its audience-punking The Big Game ad. If you want to take a second look at the losing ads, you can head back to our Super Bowl page for the complete collection. But for now, head into Comments and let us know what you think of the results.

2021 Kia Sorento caught completely undisguised at a commercial shoot

Remember when Kia just sold cheap warranties wrapped in sheetmetal? After looking over these fresh spy photos of the 2021 Sorento crossover, we'd forgive you for saying no, as those days are clearly well behind the Korean automaker.  Not even a week ago, we saw leaked images of a finished example hiding out underneath a sheet, but this week's unveiling is far more comprehensive. Our spies weren't crafty enough to position themselves for any interior shots, but we have just about every angle of the new Sorento's exterior, and quite frankly, we like it a lot.  Like most newer cars, the 2021 Sorento is rocking an almost full-width grille, but we'll forgive this unfortunate bit of trendy convention because the rest of the design looks clean, contemporary and practical.  While there are plenty of details and nuances to the sheetmetal, the overall shape is fairly minimalist. It's a classic SUV silhouette with only a slight taper to the rear glass, which should allow the new Sorento to hold a good bit of cargo even with the second-row seats intact.  Also in the rear, we see that Kia has taken a page out of some European designers' playbooks with a widely spaced "SORENTO" made up of individual letters across the bottom of the tailgate. Kia has also gone for a split vertical tail light design that places interior housings on the tailgate itself and exterior housings in the quarter panels.  This Sorento also shows what appear to be integrated exhaust finishers that are mirrored by reflector housings above them, giving the whole lower rear bumper a very futuristic look.  A Kia executive confirmed that hybrid and plug-in variants are planned for the redesigned crossover, however it's not clear yet whether (or when) those variants will come to the U.S.  We're expecting to learn more about the new Sorento soon, as we've just learned it will be revealed at the Geneva Motor Show in March.  Related Video:

IIHS says these are the safest cars of 2013

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) has revealed its annual list of Top Safety Picks, an award that highlights automobiles it says offer "superior crash protection." A new and still more significant award, the Top Safety Pick+ honor, is given to those vehicles that earn good ratings for occupant protection in four out of five areas of measure. And while some 117 vehicles were given the TSP seal of approval for 2013, just 13 passed muster for TSP+.
To be fair, IIHS only evaluated 29 vehicles with its new testing procedures for TSP+ (we'd expect that the number of qualified cars will rise substantially for 2014). Luxury and Near Luxury midsize cars were the first groups evaluated, followed by midsizers in the Moderately Priced Cars category - unsurprisingly, it's only midsize cars that you'll find among the class this year.
Only two luxury sedans made the list of 13 for 2013: the Acura TL and Volvo S60. The other 11 cars on the list included entries from domestic, Japanese and German car makers: Dodge Avenger, Chrysler 200, Ford Fusion, Honda Accord (sedan and coupe), Kia Optima (but not its close kin, the Hyundai Sonata, strangely), Nissan Altima, Subaru Legacy and Outback, Suzuki Kizashi and the Volkswagen Passat all made the grade.