UCP Awards 2009: Car of the Decade [Preliminary Voting 3V]

[Kitdy]

Vote!

[csl177]

Well, the vote so far just reinforces why this is silly.

COTD should have some economic/cultural/environmental impact beyond fanboy wet dreams.

[Dino Scuderia]

Well, the vote so far just reinforces why this is silly.

COTD should have some economic/cultural/environmental impact beyond fanboy wet dreams.

Yes, because it clearly shows people have wet dreams about the Prius...and that's just wrong on so many levels.

[wwgkd]

Well, the vote so far just reinforces why this is silly.

COTD should have some economic/cultural/environmental impact beyond fanboy wet dreams.

I agree with you somewhat, however if all we had was econo cars technology wouldn't advance as fast and there wouldn't be the passion for cars there is today. That said, if they veyron wins I'm going to go smack around a cute little puppy. The car has to be significant in some way (preferably good engineering or some such) not just, as you said, a fanboy's wet dream.

[csl177]

Listen, I think hybrids in general are a dead end technology, but their positive societal impact is measureable. I wouldn't own a Prius, but compared to the Pagani it's actually an important vehicle. Had Tesla (or other pure electric startups) been able to produce at a reasonable price-point, hybrids would already be surpassed.

Being a thoughtful car fan means not responding only to shiny automotive crack. ;)

[cmcpokey]

with csl on this one... what relevence does the zonda have? it doesnt race. it uses an engine that is rather old. it has some very nice carbon fiber work, but it didnt really advance the technology at all. and how many have been made? 2, 3? it certainly hasnt had an impact on an entire decade.

[092326001]

Carbotanium sounds damn cool though.

[Rockefella]

Listen, I think hybrids in general are a dead end technology, but their positive societal impact is measureable. I wouldn't own a Prius, but compared to the Pagani it's actually an important vehicle. Had Tesla (or other pure electric startups) been able to produce at a reasonable price-point, hybrids would already be surpassed.

Being a thoughtful car fan means not responding only to shiny automotive crack. ;)

Agreed. If I told people I knew that this website chose the Pagani Zonda as the car of the decade, 80%, if not more would say 'huh?' I think the car that wins car of the decade should be immediately recognizable to anyone even if they're not in the know. Cars like the VW Golf or Toyota Prius fall into that category. Also, I don't think there should have been multiple options for 911 GT3 and turbo, they're pretty similar. This applies to any model. M3 would apply for BMW 3 series, GTI/R32 goes along with Golf, etc. The supercars will easily outgain the regular cars in the polls. If you take 10 average Joes and ask them to choose their favorite from a picture of a Ferrari Enzo and a Mini Cooper, most if not all will choose the Enzo. Thing is, the Enzo has very little impact on the automotive culture of the decade while a car like the Mini revolutionized the small-car ethos in America

my 2 cents

[Ferrer]

I agree with pokey, csl and Rocke. I love the Zonda but it doesn't deserve the award. Cars like the Mini, the Prius, the Nano or the iQ have or will have a much larger impact on motoring than a supercar will ever have. But it seems that it is difficult to vote with your head.

[Kitdy]

I don't want to insult anyone, but I feel people are voting for their favourite car as opposed to what is best - fair enough, the question is car of the decade; interpret that as you will.

It is a bit disappointing to have a supercar winning in each preliminary voting thread though.

[henk4]

It is a bit disappointing to have a supercar winning in each preliminary voting thread though.

That is coincidental, and a consequence of how you choose to do the groupings, i.e. alphabetically...if you had grouped according to category, (however broad), the outcome would have been different.

[Ferrer]

I voted for the Tata Nano. There were many deserving nominees in this thread, but the Tata Nano is probably the one that will have the largest impact of all of them, at least in the near future. It will bring motoring to a very large part of the population in this planet. And so it would be a deserving finalist.

I don't want to insult anyone, but I feel people are voting for their favourite car as opposed to what is best - fair enough, the question is car of the decade; interpret that as you will.
That's the thing, I personally think that you should vote according to what deserves it not what you like.

[f6fhellcat13]

I personally voted for the Zonda not because it represents anything more than the aforementioned wet dream, but because most of the other cars in this group represent complete lack of soul.

The MkV GTI may be all things to all men, but I guess those men are significantly fatter than I. Also, being in a segment where price actually counts, its high sticker and my observations about VW's reliability prevent what should be a shoe-in from getting my vote.

The Tesla is a half-baked pipe dream and a dry one at that.

The GT3 is an example of the things I love in a car, but its stratospheric price is really no different than the Zonda's in terms of reach-ability.

I really like the Phaeton, but that has proven itself to be completely out of alignment with, not just this decade's, but people's perpetual fixation on badge.

The TVR is firmly out of sight and out of mind, if I'm honest.

As an enthusiast, regarding the Camry, one of the ugliest and most boring cars to blorb its way across the surface of the earth, I would like to wish to it a simple "**** you."

The two other entries from that ever-accelerating Japanese company are quite interesting, and could be and have been quite game changing. I probably should have voted for one of them, but this is where fans of sportscars gather, so no. (I actually have no idea how the iQ drives. Somebody prove me wrong about it. ;))

The only other car I considered voting for was the Nano, but it bores the hell out of me, so I threw away my vote to some idiotic overpriced Italian art. (The Mini is my choice overall, by the way.)

[wwgkd]

The reason I didn't vote for the Nano is that it's main selling point (being incredibly cheap) doesn't translate to the much of the worlds market. It's incredibly cheap, but it does that by eliminating many things which are required in other markets. By the time it shows up here with all of the increased costs of meeting crash safety standards (which it currently fails at miserably) it's not really going to be much less than other cars already on sale here. Certainly options which almost all buyers are going to demand (HVAC, radio at the minimum, etc) will increase the price even more. All of this will add weight, too, which will mandate more power, which will increase price. I understand that it's great for markets like india and africa, I just wouldn't call it the car of the decade because that's all it's great for.

[Kitdy]

That is coincidental, and a consequence of how you choose to do the groupings, i.e. alphabetically...if you had grouped according to category, (however broad), the outcome would have been different.

I didn't think that would be fair. Alphabetically was as good as random for me and I didn't want to privilege any car or group of cars just due to what group they belonged to.

As I said, ideally, there would be one poll with enough options for all the cars, but as this is not the case, I feel this best preserves the natural order of that one list poll.

[henk4]

I didn't think that would be fair. Alphabetically was as good as random for me and I didn't want to privilege any car or group of cars just due to what group they belonged to.

As I said, ideally, there would be one poll with enough options for all the cars, but as this is not the case, I feel this best preserves the natural order of that one list poll.
I did not critisize what you did, only explained the consequences of your particular choice...

[LTSmash]

1. Excel spreadsheet

2. Column A: Car Name

3. Column B: Car Price

4. Sort: High to Low

5. Rows 1-8: Car of the Decade Voting 1 (High Price)

6. Rows 9-16: Car of the Decade Voting 2 (Mid Price)

7. Rows 17-24: Car of the Decade Voting 3 (Low Price)

The ibankers way of solving problems in Excel is what makes the world go round.

[cmcpokey]

The ibankers way of solving problems in Excel is what makes the world go round.

excel is so pedestrian though... why not use R/S+, or better JMP. highschool students use excel, analysts use real software.

[LTSmash]

excel is so pedestrian though... why not use R/S+, or better JMP. highschool students use excel, analysts use real software.

I guess that depends on the product. Most deals can be done through Excel; that's what all the bulge* brackets use in IBD. All analysts/associates use Excel for modeling.

Your more quant trading style prop shops would use more sophisticated programs but bankers only need Excel for the most part for M&A and IBD. "Jump" (which I'm not too familiar with) I would think would be more geared toward research, HF, and trading.

[cmcpokey]

maybe finanacial analysts use excel. ops analysts only use excel when there is nothing else available. and to make prettier pictures than the basic java scripts in other packages use. regardless, i think we can all agree that the order here was sub-optimal.

[henk4]

when something is being promoted as used by bankers, I am getting suspicious.

[Ferrer]

So, basically go for the cheapest and vote for that.

[wwgkd]

I'm kind of disappointed. I actually thought this was one fo the stronger brackets, so to see it dominated so much by a car that's basically an existing (older) car with wings is dissapointing.

[Kitdy]

I actually thought people would see past the supercars and go for something like the Prius, or even the Nano, which I think are way more deserving of a niche supercar with limited impact that arguably wasn't even the best of it's breed.

[LTSmash]

The people have spoken. They want their Pagani.

... It could worse. The Pagani is not a bad car, and it is very worthy of being the top notch supercar.

[Kitdy]

Zonda dominates this poll. Finals up in a few minutes.