Kelley Blue Book recently named the top ten coolest new vehicles priced under $18,000. With the average price of a new vehicle at over $25,000, this list is an excellent guide especially for new car buyers who think that there aren’t any cool cars, trucks, and SUVs below the $18,000 price mark. The editors of Kelley Blue Book’s kbb.com first put together a list of all the new vehicles available at $18,000 then picked the top ten coolest from the list. Coolness refers to a wide range of characteristics and values such as performance, reliability, styling, versatility, economy, comfort or any combination of these. The vehicles on the list definitely offer quite a good mix of these values.

Jack Nerad, editorial director of Kelly Blue Book’s kbb.com remarked that “While everyone bemoans the fact that new cars are so expensive these days, we found a wide variety of cool, fun-to-drive vehicles that are still affordable. We settled on the $18,000 price point, because it offers most buyers a monthly payment of less than $350 over the course of a five-year loan.” The 2006 Yaris, Toyota’s best seller in Europe and the least expensive vehicle in Toyota’s current line up, was the least expensive cool car on the list with an MSRP of $14,630. Meanwhile, the 2006 Toyota Scion tC was the most expensive at $17,640. So if you are planning to buy a car, these choices are definitely worth considering.

Here are the top ten coolest new cars priced under $18,000: