Concerning high end audio names in new cars

spenav, If you put Mark Levinson or B&W in a car one would hope it would be at least a little above average. Joe

I agree with @spenav as far as expectations. My wife has an Avalon with JBL system which I like for the car use. The biggest reason is that it is no louder in the back seat than the front. IOW very even volume. And tone was good for a car. It was very good for the 550 mile road trips to see family in which my mother in law went with us.

I am part of the Corvette forum as well and could never understand why anyone wants a high end system in it. The newer ones are fairly quiet for a sports car but they still aren't as quiet as the Avalon or even my truck

If listening space has the most impact on sound, which most assert it does, doesn't seem like a car/truck/whatever would be a very good place for sound even with the best gear in the world, unless you just want to vibrate your surroundings with bass. 

Marketing hoopla is all it is. 

there have been a number of threads on car based sound systems

branding of car audio is just that - branding to sell things, make people spending money feel like they are getting something nice

end of the day, some cars are for thrills, in these you don’t listen much to the car audio, the car provides the soundtrack

other cars are appliances, functional to get you there with minimum of fuss and discomfort, these are more isolation machines, drivers/riders onboard are not trying to connect to the car, they want to enjoy their time despite the car... here car audio systems are more important, some are pretty nice, others not so much - none can compare to a home system though

i find the car audio branding doesn’t correlate too well with sound quality