Some things have been repeated so often that many people have come to accept them as facts. I tripped across one of these in Bob Lutz’s new book,
The cars Lutz mentions: Eclipse / Laser, Corolla / Prizm, and Matrix / Vibe. I happen to have some
Also in the 1992 issue, the Prizm scored lower than the Toyota Corolla, but just by a little, not “way lower” as Lutz states. In the 1995 and 1996 issues the Prizm actually scored higher than the Corolla, with the margin in the former year a substantial ten points.
With the Vibe and Matrix, Lutz gets his snark on. “Have you been paying attention? Test question: which of the ‘twins’ performed better in quality surveys?” Well, in the 2005 issue the Pontiac Vibe and Toyota Matrix had virtually the same scores, with both better than average. In the 2009 issue the Matrix scored a little higher than the Vibe, but in the 2007 and 2008 issues the reverse was true. In fact, in the 2008 issue the Vibe had the highest score in the entire “wagons and hatchbacks” category. It seems that Lutz either wasn’t paying attention or saw the unfair playing field he wanted to see, didn’t check the facts either way (always a good idea), and consequently failed his own test.