UCP Car of the Year Awards

I decided to change last year's formula, which was generally a mess more than anything else, to make it much more organized. I know not everybody will be pleased, but I'm giving my idea a try, and we can always change the formula next year anyway. I divided the Car of the Year award into two categories, mainly to give mass produced vehicles a chance. Last year most people voted for a supercar, I won't blame you, I did as well. However, I feel like great cars such as, say, the Ford Mondeo, the Subaru Legacy or the Fiat 500 deserve a chance to be nominated. The way it works this year is as follow: the two main categories are "Mass Market Car of the Year" and "High-end Car/Supercar of the Year". Now it was complicated to find a proper way to set boundaries between the two, very hard in fact. First I thought about using MSRP, aka under/above $100,000, but this way has flaws: a $80,000 Nissan GT-R is a supercar in its own rights and doesn't belong in the mass market category. Then I thought about power-to-weight ratio as it makes the most sense, but unfortunately this piece of information is not available in the UCP database, and I don't want people to have to look up all over the internet to find the info. Ultimately I decided I would split the two categories as follow: under/above 300 bhp. Now obviously this way has flaws as well, since horsepower is very subjective. For example, an Ariel Atom with a 245 bhp engine produces supercar-territory numbers. For this very reason I will have to allow exceptions, depending on performance numbers. Use your common sense as you nominate cars, please.

 Moreover, the main two categories are split in 4 sub-categories. The reason is simple, there are too many cars nominated to do only one poll, which allows for a maximum of 15 entries. So I thought I would divide the car by territories. "Best American Car", "Best European Car", "Best Australian Car" and "Best Asian Car" are the sub-categories. The 3 cars that receive the most nominations in each sub-categories will make it to the final "Mass Market Car of the Year" and "High-end Car/Supercar of the Year" voting threads. That's 12 choices in each categories, which is under the 15 entries maximum limit for a poll. It allows me as well to enter 3 additional cars in case there are ties in the nomination threads, eliminating the need for run-off threads (providing there are no more than 3 ties, hopefully).

 I will post the results of all of the awards in a thread when all the voting threads are closed, and whichever car has the most votes between "Mass Market Car of the Year" and "High-end Car/Supercar of the Year" will ultimately win the overall UCP Car of the Year title.

Multiple nominations are allowed.

RULES

 Now this is subject to debate as well, but I had to set rules so here they are. Again, we can change them next year if they are widely criticized

  • Nominated cars have to have been introduced at an auto show in 2008 and/or...
  • ...sold as a 2008 or 2009 model year (so if a car was introduced at an auto show in 2007 AND made it as a 2008MY production car, it can be nominated)
  • ...be a production car, OR a concept car INTENDED for production (confirmed, not based on rumours)

LINKS

Nomination Threads

Best European Mass Market Car (2008)
Best Asian Mass Market Car (2008)
Best American Mass Market Car (2008)
Best Australian Mass Market Car (2008)

Best European High-end Car/Supercar (2008)
 Best Asian High-end Car/Supercar (2008)
Best American High-end Car/Supercar (2008)
Best Australian High-end Car/Supercar (2008)

I will add links to the voting threads here once they are up.