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2014 North American Car and Truck/Utility of the Year finalists announced [w/poll]

The 2014 North American International Auto Show is right around the corner, which means it's high time we found out which cars and trucks would be finalists for the prestigious North American Car and Truck/Utility of the Year awards.
The finalists - three in cars and three in three trucks/utilities - are dominated by American brands, with two-thirds of the finalists hailing from either General Motors or Chrysler (don't worry Ford, there's always next year), while outliers from Mazda and Acura can be found in each contest. Here now is the list of finalists for the big prizes:
2014 North American Car of the Year:

Why a production Mazda Koeru won't be a Subaru Outback clone

No automaker has had a hit quite like the Outback Many have entered, few have won. The Subaru Outback is one of those automotive bogeys that competitors seek to imitate but never quite capture. Mazda is poised to change that, its CEO tells Automotive News, with a production version of the Koeru concept. We're torn on whether this attempt will be the one to do it, whether the proposed model is truly aimed at the Outback, or whether it's just another pale imitation destined for failure. While the ingredients are pretty basic – wagon-like shape, extra cladding, a smidge more ground clearance than a regular car – no automaker has had a hit quite like the Outback. Reasons include packaging issues, poor brand fit, and Subaru's seemingly unstoppable momentum in building all-wheel-drive archetypes. That hasn't stopped a bunch of companies from trying. And now for a list: Ford attempted with the Freestyle/Taurus X; note that that model no longer exists, having been replaced de facto by the Flex and the newly crossover-ified Explorer. Audi discontinued the A4 Avant and slapped the Allroad badge and some fender flares on to capture the affluent outdoorsy crowd, initially selling well but now down 40 percent since last year. The humpback Honda (Accord) Crosstour and Toyota Venza could also be considered Outback-apers, as both short-lived models took sedan bodies and added a hatch and optional all-wheel drive. Dodge got into this space a few years back with the Journey Crossroad trim level, but fake brush guards and black wheels do not an Outback make. Volvo has perhaps come closest with the XC70, a not-quite-crossover that it nevertheless brands like its other crossovers. It helps that the Volvo die-hard and the repeat Subaru buyer aren't too different. Most of these models no longer exist, and the ones that do haven't sold as well as Subaru's Outback so far this year. Even if you're generous and add all 96,718 Journey sales (and not just those for the Crossroad, which FCA doesn't break out separately) to V70/XC70, Venza, and Crosstour, it still doesn't equal the 136,227 Outbacks Subaru pushed through November of 2015. And, as Automotive News points out, Mazda hasn't sold that many crossovers so far this year (the number is 129,932 thanks to huge CX-5 numbers). So why is Mazda considering going after the hallowed Outback? First off, we're not sure that it is because there's the question of what tiny niche this vehicle would occupy. "It's a totally new car.

Mazda's new turbo four fits in both the 6 and the 3

Despite the size differences, the Mazda CX-9 shares a lot with its smaller car-based siblings, the Mazda6 and Mazda3. That could allow Mazda to slot its full-sizer's new 2.5-liter, turbocharged four-cylinder engine under the hood of its smaller offerings. Pardon us while we do a happy dance. "[The 2.5-liter turbo] fits in a lot of our cars, and where we're actually going to put it is another question," Mazda North America vehicle development engineer Dave Coleman told Australia's Car Advice. Coleman specified that the turbocharged engine will fit in all the same applications that can accommodate the company's 2.5-liter gas and diesel engines. "Basically, that big space we used for the bundle of snakes exhaust manifold, the turbo is in that space too. They're all packaged to occupy the same space. It's exactly the same clearance as the exhaust manifold of the other engines." This kind of logic – if Engine A is the same size as Engine B, then both should fit in Car C – is what's lead us to imagine a turbocharged Mazda6 since the new engine was announced. In short, it's great news. Mazda's 2.5-liter turbo is a hell of an engine in the CX-9, and it's hard to imagine it'd be worse in a lighter vehicle. But just because it works from an engineering standpoint doesn't mean it's going to happen. At least, not soon. "It fits. I'm not a product planner so I don't get to make that call," Coleman told Car Advice. "It's up to the product planners to decide what they're going to put it in." The most obvious application for a turbocharged engine in the 3 or 6 is as a reborn Mazdaspeed model. But don't get too excited – Coleman said Mazda hasn't even gotten as far as building an engineering prototype with this engine. We're still firmly at the theoretical stage. And that's bad news, because it gels with what we've been reporting – that Mazda will wait a generation for future Mazdaspeed models. We just stopped doing our happy dance. Related Video: