Motor Trend COTY award goes to.....

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killermrk
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KillerMRK2
Suprise. Its the Toyota Camry. What makes this car so appealing? Its realialbe, and has an available V6 ( a powerful one at that) but its just so bland. Really. There are cars with so much more personality for just a little more or less. :grumpy:

No links from MT yet.... 🤬

There where much better cars there, the Fit, the Altima....I'm very mad.
 
In 2002, Motor Trend named the new Ford Thunderbird its Car of the Year.

I rest my case.
 
Dude, I go that issue weeks ago. And I hate Toyota for making the Camry perform so well. It's not supposed to happen. But the car would be great with a go-fast suspension, some racy rims and tires, a stick, and an LSD. I'd drive it.
 
And it's probably not built to withstand 260 hard-driving pound-feet of torque. And it's not a Honda or GM, so the tranny probably won't fit the 6 anyway.
 
Keef don't forget Nissan, it's V6's love the 6spd manual transmission. As for the thread topic, Motor Trend isn't a trend anymore...its more idiotic.
 
There was an expose' years ago that MT's Car of the Year choice was secretly linked to the manufacturer's advertising budget. The Chevy Vega, and the AMC/Renault Alliance are amongst past Car of the Year winners. I rest my case.
Toyota's current US offerings are it's blandest of all time. Not a single sports coupe in the line up. Make mine a Mazda.
 
After reading though the entire issue, I came upon a few big issues:

1) Motor Trend doesn't like to be critiqued. Look through the first few pages of the magazine and they are all mad about The Autoextremist blog's concern over the success of the Mercedes GL as "SUV of the Year." I'd agree that it didn't deserve it, as it isn't an "everyman's" truck, nor did it push boundaries any further in the segment. The Chevrolet Tahoe or GMC Yukon should have won the award, as they represent a significant step forward not only for GM, but for Detroit, and point the way forward for full-size SUVs of the future.

2) Reading through the reviews of the various vehicles, it also became apparent that if it isn't Japanese, it isn't going to fly. Motor Trend's bias against everything American (that isn't a sports car) is almost sickening these days, as most of their claims and criticisms are pretty much unfounded and often times without base. Look at the review of the Saturn Aura, where it is praised and praised, and then cut down for a slightly "cheap" interior. Flip a few more pages ahead with their review of the Lexus LS460, and there isn't any mention of the 200+ foot stopping distance, but we wouldn't want to piss off Toyota, would we?

...Onto the Camry...

What a waste of paper and ink, that section was. In their over-glorification of the car in which nobody should care that much about, it was evident that Toyota had either paid-off the magazine, or Motor Trend had finally gained their tickets to the loony bin. In their gross glorification of the car, they neglected to talk about the sub-par material quality, questionable styling, and the lack of any kind of "fun" model that most sporting folks would enjoy.

...But once again, we wouldn't want to piss-off Toyota, would we?

The Cayman should have took it, there isn't any question there. Even Motor Trend admitted it in their short review of the Porsche. What killed it? Pricing? Who cares? If a car is that good, give the award to it. It certainly didn't stop them when they handed the award over to the Mercedes GL, did it?

It is interesting to note that thus far in other magazine "Car of the Year" competitions, one car continues to appear; The Porsche Cayman. What car hasn't shown up in any other issues? The Toyota Camry.

...You figure it out folks...
 
YSSMAN
Look at the review of the Saturn Aura, where it is praised and praised, and then cut down for a slightly "cheap" interior.
Click to expand...
2 things:
  1. GM promised that the interior cheapening wouldn't be an issue. They promised a complete 180 from the dysmal Ion. They gave us a car that was better in every way than the Ion except in interior quality.
  2. Automobile, which is in my opinion the least biased of all American car publications, found the same problems. Especially after the show cars superb interior quality.
 
I'm rather fond of my '99 Camry. But it's basic point A to point B transportation. It's good at many things but it is rather bland and boring.
However, In the Kansas City area, there are more of them here than just about anything else.
They are almost as universal as the mini-van was 6 years ago.
 
The 1991 Motor Trend Car of the Year was the Chevrolet Caprice.

1991chevroletcaprice.jpg


Car of the year?

YSSMAN
The Cayman should have took it, there isn't any question there. Even Motor Trend admitted it in their short review of the Porsche. What killed it? Pricing? Who cares? If a car is that good, give the award to it. It certainly didn't stop them when they handed the award over to the Mercedes GL, did it?
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Touché.
 
Yeah, they have picked some pretty funny stuff as car of the year.

1960: Chevy Corvair
1971: Chevy Vega
1974: Mustang II
1983: Renault Alliance
1993: Ford Probe GT
1997: Chevy Malibu
2002: Thunderbird

Someone should buy all the past COTY's just to point out how worthless the award is and how very average and boring their garage is. Given the winners, it sure wouldn't cost much.

I don't even flip through Motor Trend in the store anymore. I've got my own opinions on cars; I want good writing thats fun to read. I want Car and Driver.
 
FormulaNone
The 1991 Motor Trend Car of the Year was the Chevrolet Caprice.

1991chevroletcaprice.jpg


Car of the year?
Click to expand...

Hey now, the old B-Body is a pretty damn-good car if you ask me. My guess is that competition was a bit thin in 1991 against the Caprice, but I'm not certain there.
 
YSSMAN
Hey now, the old B-Body is a pretty damn-good car if you ask me. My guess is that competition was a bit thin in 1991 against the Caprice, but I'm not certain there.
Click to expand...
It's a boring, underpowered, land whale that copied the Ford Taurus five years too late.

Fortunately, GM has long since shaken off those dark years. Now Ford is sitting there staring at the wall.
 
...Well, there's always the 9C1 and Impala to fix those problems, lol...

BTW: Does everybody know that we are doing a GTPlanet "Car of the Year" over in the Cars in General forum? It is plainly called GTPlanet's "Best Car 2006" award, and nominations have been a bit varied. It will be interesting to see what kind of balance will be struck between American and European users, particularly with nominations as varied as the Suzuki Swift, Audi TT, Saturn Aura, and Renault Clio (just to name a few).
 
If the 1991 Caprice copied anything it copied the Caprice before it. And before that, all the way back to 1977.
 
Toronado
2 things:

  1. GM promised that the interior cheapening wouldn't be an issue. They promised a complete 180 from the dysmal Ion. They gave us a car that was better in every way than the Ion except in interior quality.
  2. Automobile, which is in my opinion the least biased of all American car publications, found the same problems. Especially after the show cars superb interior quality.
Click to expand...


The least biased magazine in the entire world is Consumer Reports. There is not one perfect review in there.

Out of mags with advertising, I'll have to go with Automobile too. They aren't scared to print bad things about anyone.

But C&D is the most fun to read, they have good articles.
 
MatttheTuner
The least biased magazine in the entire world is Consumer Reports. There is not one perfect review in there.
Click to expand...

That is completely incorrect there. I haven't seen a grouping of testers who can neither drive nor write critically about a car that bad, in well, ever. I'd almost trust my six year old brother over CR in most circumstances, as they are often just plain wrong.

Sure, given that they write primarily for a senior citizen crowd, they aren't going to like the "good" cars that everyone else does, but when companies like Toyota and Honda get such high marks on cars that arguably shouldn't, there is obviously something going on.

Added to that, the way in which they gather data is also full of holes that could throw off ratings for various cars and trucks. Given their small-ish reader base, and the ages at which they are rating from, you are going to see a far-more skewed view of a particular make or model of any car or truck than you would in an objective magazine like Car and Driver or Automobile. Statistically speaking, more people are going to be apt to reply to their survey with overly positive or overly negative comments on a given product, not something that is working out as normally as expected. Added to that, older people are often far more irritated by small problems as compared to (younger) people today, yet another reason why their testings are flawed.

...Sure, their little stories are interesting to read, but thats all that I would give them. If anything, it is plain to see that they know more about toasters and refrigerators than they do about automobiles...
 
+rep YSSMAN. Yeah, I'm seriously letting our MT subscription lapse. MT Classic, on the other hand, now that has some cool stuff...

But yeah, back to the Camry; my grandmother actually bought a Camry Hybrid a couple months ago (complete with the since-halved $2600 tax credit) with the intention of replacing her Chevy 327-powered '74 Jag XJ6L with it. Well, she very quickly got cold feet and now wants her Jagrolet (or is that Chevuar?...) brought back to a decent state of repair. That leaves us with a brand-spankin' new Camry Hybrid (special ordered without sunroof, navi or leather). I've driven it a couple times and, as a means of getting from A to B, it's without equal. It's got all the features most people could ever ask for, plus it's a more-or-less full-size sedan that gets close to 40 mpg in real world driving. Sure it's not particularly exciting to drive or look at, but as my dad says, it's an appliance, and one of the best out there.

That being said, I too would have been less suspicious of Poseur...I mean Motor Trend's priorities if the Honda Fit or Saturn Aura had won (even though I would be rather irate about the latter since, in a perfect world, it would be wearing "Oldsmobile Cutlass" badges).
 
YSSMAN
Sure, given that they write primarily for a senior citizen crowd, they aren't going to like the "good" cars that everyone else does, but when companies like Toyota and Honda get such high marks on cars that arguably shouldn't, there is obviously something going on.
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Now thats just silly. I think your anti-japanese glasses may be on too tight. Almost every Honda/Acura on sale right now is a good-great car, with the possible exception of the ridgeline. In fact, not including the civic, C/d probably rates Hondas as good if not better than MT.
 
Hmmm... it may be over-familiarization, but I'm getting over my crush on the Fit. Too tinny, and I really really hate electric steering. Still drives like a little go-kart, though... fun little thing. :lol:

Honda's cars are great, but there's not as much involvement, nowadays, as there used to be. Twitchy over-sensitive brakes, tinny structure compared to new Fords and Mazdas (shock!) and electric steering to die for. Seriously... if all cars had electric steering, I'd kill myself. :lol:

At least their engines are good, the looks are great (if a bit geeky) and their cars can handle... but aside from the Si (which, sadly, my market doesn't get), I don't see the excitement anymore.

Motor Trend names the Camry? Some guy was crowing about it on my home boards... so the heck what. Maybe they're trying to start their own running joke... sort of in response to C&D's Accord fixation. (Honestly, the Accord's good, but they haven't all been excellent, this past decade...)

Not to take it away from the Camry... it's a big leap in terms of style and class over the competition... but naming a family car like this "Car of the Year" kinda suggests your writers are getting a bit...










old. :lol: :lol: :lol:

Maybe they should start working for Consumer Reports. :dopey:
 
SagarisGTB
Now thats just silly. I think your anti-japanese glasses may be on too tight. Almost every Honda/Acura on sale right now is a good-great car, with the possible exception of the ridgeline. In fact, not including the civic, C/d probably rates Hondas as good if not better than MT.
Click to expand...

I don't mean to pick on Honda in most circumstances, as I do rate the Accord and the Fit far higher than many of the other products in their respective categories. However, when they have the audacity to give vehicles like the Ridgeline a big thumbs-up, I begin to worry. Nobody in their right mind wants a minivan disguised as a "truck," particularly when it can't haul or tow anything worth a damn. But I forgot, it has a locking "trunk" in the bed, and that automatically makes it better than the GMT900 Avalanche, or hell even a real pickup truck from Toyota or Nissan.

...I only pick on Honda because they are there with Toyota nine times out of then. More often than not, Honda deserves the places they have, and I'm good with that. But they have their fair share of models that probably get rated a bit higher than they should. Its only because of the big "H" on the hood that some grades are a bit higher...
 

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