Well, Graham, as was pointed out last month, Car of the Year last year was run no differently from any of the previous 30-odd years. It’s a concours competition, always has been and is judged on points awarded to each individual car, awarded by three separate independent judges that are all tallied up at the end on Sunday afternoon prior to the announcement of the winner. If any car in any condition was eligible to enter, what criteria would one use to choose such cars? How would they be judged, or would it just be a case of spinning a roulette wheel? As for having two categories for restored and original, only one of the cars last year could possibly have qualified for the ‘original’ category, which means it would have won that category simply on merit of having been the only car within that class! As for featuring ordinary or ‘normal’ cars that’s something we regularly do. Out of the four cars featured last month (April) three would easily fit into that category: the 1979 Trans Am, low mileage, all original and unmodified, the 1954 Chevrolet Bel Air, again a nice clean, straight car, unmodified and the 1970 Lincoln Continental, again low mileage, good straight condition and not hideously expensive to buy… We could fill the magazine with cheap ’n’ cheerful Chrysler 300s or V6 Camaros all day long, but when presented with the opportunity of featuring something as unique and rare as a 1936 Cord, it would seem a no-brainer to feature the latter!
Well, Graham, as was pointed out last month, Car of the Year last year was run no differently from any of the previous 30-odd years. It’s a concours competition, always has been and is judged on points awarded to each individual car, awarded by three separate independent judges that are all tallied up at the end on Sunday afternoon prior to the announcement of the winner. If any car in any condition was eligible to enter, what criteria would one use to choose such cars? How would they be judged, or would it just be a case of spinning a roulette wheel? As for having two categories for restored and original, only one of the cars last year could possibly have qualified for the ‘original’ category, which means it would have won that category simply on merit of having been the only car within that class! As for featuring ordinary or ‘normal’ cars that’s something we regularly do. Out of the four cars featured last month (April) three would easily fit into that category: the 1979 Trans Am, low mileage, all original and unmodified, the 1954 Chevrolet Bel Air, again a nice clean, straight car, unmodified and the 1970 Lincoln Continental, again low mileage, good straight condition and not hideously expensive to buy… We could fill the magazine with cheap ’n’ cheerful Chrysler 300s or V6 Camaros all day long, but when presented with the opportunity of featuring something as unique and rare as a 1936 Cord, it would seem a no-brainer to feature the latter!