Americans love a winner and for those who bought a 2008 new car, there is a good chance they have one. Autowriters.com has identified 274 possible winners crowned by 26 different press groups, print or digital magazines, web sites, research firms or independent panels.
Of course, it may be “mud buster of the year” cold weather champ” or “cup holder sweepstakes winner” or another unique distinction, but a win is a win, right?
Many models share their award with one or more other “winners.” And, there may be disagreement about the relative significance of one award versus another.
The awards are not weighted. All are treated equally and in the case of ties all are counted as a winner. In the bragging game, however, who cares about details. Forget that it was one of 10 new models similarly honored or that your car shares its accolade with three other cars in one of 78 classes. It’s a winner!
Compiling the proliferation of distinctions is not meant to suggest that awards do not have benefit beyond the added awareness or increased circulation/ readership of their sponsors.
GM took top manufacturer honors with Buick, Cadillac. Chevrolet, GMC and Pontiac compiling 51 awards between them. Toyota followed with Lexus, Scion and Toyota models garnering 38. Then Ford with 19 plus Mercury, 5 and Lincoln, 7, totaling 31. Audi had a surprising 14 accolades.
If you discover an award that is not listed, too late for this report. But let AWCom know in case we decide to undertake this exercise for 2009 models – which, incidentally, already has two winners. A complete breakout of the various awards and winners can be had in either a PDF or Word format – gratis! Click on the link:
Salient among them is his uncommon coupling of humor and auto journalism that began because he loves cars (he says he was bombing around Maine woods in a 1982 Subaru wagon at age 11 and still has a stack of car magazines from the ‘80s) and because he began his writing career as a humor columnist and feature writer for The Improper Bostonian. It is an 85,000 circulation glossy biweekly offering a calendar of Greater Boston events plus numerous features and columns. Dyer has been in every issue since starting there in 1999. 
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