DSCOTY '09: Official Winners Options

[clarkma5]

Original competition rules can be found here. As polls close, the winners will be shown here.

Car of the Year

Non-Sports Overall: Hyundai Genesis

Sports Overall: Chevrolet Corvette ZR-1

Honorable Mention: Nissan 370Z Coupe

Categories

Boy Racers: Subaru Impreza WRX
Compacts: Volkswagen Jetta TDI
Compact Luxury: Volkswagen CC
Convertibles under $65k: Porsche Boxster
Entry-Level Sport Sedans: Pontiac G8 GXP
Exotics: Lamborghini Gallardo LP560-4 Coupe
Family Cars: Mazda6
Grand Tourers: Maserati Granturismo S
Luxury Sedans: Hyundai Genesis
Performance Saloons: Cadillac CTS-V
Sports Cars under $65k: Porsche Cayman
Sports Cars over $65k: Chevrolet Corvette ZR-1
Super Luxury: Rolls-Royce Phantom Coupé
Subcompacts: Honda Fit
Ultra-exotics: Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport

Truck of the Year

Overall: Ford Flex

Honorable Mention: Infiniti FX

Categories

Compact SUVs: Audi Q5
Family SUVs: Ford Flex
Luxury SUVs: BMW X5 xDrive35d
Pickups: Ford F-150

[clarkma5]

Well it's been well over a month but DSCOTY09 has finally run its course. In the end, the Hyundai Genesis, Chevrolet Corvette ZR-1, and Ford Flex share car/truck of the year honors and the Nissan 370Z Coupe and the Infiniti FX picked up the two honorable mention slots. Thanks for voting, see ya next year!

[Phix]

Great, who's presenting this PRESTIGIOUS award to the car manufacturers?

[moe]

^ I nominate Phix.

[Phix]

oh god moe you don't even WATCH F1 do you!?

Why does everyone have a BrawnGP avatar now?

[moe]

^ I do, I've just never really participated in the DS discussions. In fact, I booked my tickets for Abu Dhabi a couple days ago.

[Dr. Strangelove]

oh god moe you don't even WATCH F1 do you!?

Why does everyone have a BrawnGP avatar now?

[Bjorn]

^ I do, I've just never really participated in the DS discussions. In fact, I booked my tickets for Abu Dhabi a couple days ago.

You might want to reserve your plane tickets to Montreal now too.

There was a small piece in the paper here about Abu Dhabi not being able to raise the capital to finish the track in time, and F1 approaching Montreal about hosting the race this year. Although apparently the mayor of Montreal said something along the lines of "Tabernac, if you want our help we need a commitment beyond this year".

[moe]

Well in the event that the race doesn't go through (remember, it's scheduled for November), I get a full refund. In any case, we've heard numerous assurances that the Yas Marina circuit should be finished in time. They've actually paused other projects, and focused resources towards the circuit last I heard.

[moe]

Are we having DSCOTY this year?

[clarkma5]

I don't have the time to do DSCOTY this year...if anyone else wants to have a crack at it, I'd be happy to hand over what materials I have gathered thus far and help 'em get started.

[moe]

I'll give it a shot if no one in N. America is willing. PM me the details Clark.

[Bjorn]

^Moe, if you need some help, like finding images or anything, send me a PM. I can probably spare some time.

[Razor]

^Moe, if you need some help, like finding images or anything, send me a PM. I can probably spare some time.

I can also be of assistance, if you need webserver space for anything, I've got a plethora available.

[nismo]

I'm willing to help, I have this semester online, so I can help from the comfort of my house. haha

[moe]

Thanks guys, I know what Clarkma did on his own is pretty massive, so I'll probably have my work cut out for me. The next couple days are a bit rough, but I'll probably start getting things together on Monday. Of course, I'll wait on what Clarkma's already got, so I can just build on that.

[clarkma5]

It's not THAT tough, it just takes some time. I would sit at my computer with my word document list of all the cars and categories, my word document for the category I was working on, my browser open with edmunds, google, and google image search, photoshop for cropping and resizing photos, and my FTP client for uploading...I would type my forum post into my word document filled with information from t3h interwebz, gather 3 photos for every car (one front, one back, one interior, or as close as I could reasonably manage) and crop and resize them to 800 pixels wide by no more than 600 pixels tall, name them by a standard format, upload them to my website, and then post the post to the forum with the poll and be done. Every category took between 30 minutes and an hour to do from start to finish (depending on how readily available the information and good pictures were, not counting time to actually figure out what the categories were in the first place) and I would normally try to do at least 1 a day, typically 2. It's not too difficult, kinda tedious, but whatever.

The more tricky part I guess is figuring out what cars get included and what categories to make. I would start by doing all my research, trying to find every new or reasonably updated car for the model year, and that took some time...had to track down stuff that I didn't really know anything about, find out about cars that maybe got a new engine for the model year but looked the same, etc. Car & Driver-style "guides to what's new for this model year" are a great place to start with that sorta shit but hardly the end-all. Auto show coverage archives are another place to start but you often have to figure out if whatever they showed at detroit last year is actually making it to the market this year, and it can be tough to divine what's going on with that...and then when it comes to finding new stuff from small manufacturers like Mosler or Ariel or Spyker or something, that can be tough, especially when it comes down to figuring out if it's even available in the US or not. Then when it comes to making categories, I tried to break them up in groups no bigger than 7 but no less than 4 (I think I've broken that rule a couple times) where the cars in a single category have something useful in common...it can end up getting pretty sticky because sometimes there are cars that are just in a class of one or two and they need to go somewhere else for the sake of a full category. The borderline updated cars are handy for that...ya know, because Make X Model Y got a new engine this year but otherwise looks the same, if I need it to fill space, I'll put it in, but if there's no place for it, I'll leave it out. It's definitely not a hard science.

[fiber optic]

Mustang and Raptor

Crown 'em, done deal.

[clarkma5]

I love the Mustang but it's hard for me to crown the 2010 when I know the 2011 engines are really what's going to make them great. Also, of course, it depends on what they're up against.