2010 North American Car of the Year Candidates Announced

2010 Kia Forte: a potential winner!

I love Car of the Year awards. I love analyzing the candidates and then picking on the winners.

Earlier this week we shared the candidates for the 2010 European Car of the Year Award, which revealed a little gem I hadn’t heard of before called the Skoda Yeti. I hope it wins!

On our side of the Atlantic, I’m excited to read through the candidates for the 2010 North American Car and Truck of the Year awards. The list is proof that the line between cars and trucks is blurring, because the Subaru Outback is in the truck category. Hmmm.

For this list, only vehicles that are all-new or substantially redesigned are eligible. The fact that the Toyota 4Runner shows up is great news for Toyota fans: a redesign is coming by early 2010!

Here are the candidates for the 2010 North American Car of the Year:

And here are the 2010 North American Truck of the year candidates:

If I were handing out the awards, my choice for Car of the Year would be the Kia Forte. That even surprises me, but I’m digging the economical, great-looking, feature-packed, low-priced option this year.

On the truck side, I’m going with the Ford Transit Connect, especially with the future option of it being the perfect family hauler. That is, unless the new Toyota 4Runner absolutely blows me away!

What car and truck would you pick to win the coveted North American Car of the Year Award?

-tgriffith

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Of Hummers, Knights, and Red Bulls

When I saw our post on yesterday’s sale of Hummer to the Chinese, it was the photo in particular that gave rise to the following thoughts. One, the Chinese are welcome to it. Two, the car shown is a bad joke. Three, the size of the model’s legs indicates she needs a Hummer. Four, some people can never get enough of these cars.

Now comes a report on another, larger, more blood-curdling military-type vehicle called the Knight XV (above). Produced by a Canadian firm, this luxury armored vehicle, based on a Ford F-350, can “comfortably seat six professional basketball players.” Good to know, but what about the rest of the team? The thing is 19 feet long, weighs 5-1/2 tons, and makes the Hummer look, well, petite.

This fascination with military knock-off vehicles is not only an expression of macho, supremo-maleness. Two years ago, I was having dinner in an Italian restaurant in New York when six drunk, attractive young women emerged giggling from a private party, piled into a long Hummer limo, and sped off into the night. The Chinese seem to like doing weddings in Hummers, too.

For the company’s buyer, Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery, congratulations are certainly in order. The news was spread all over Chinese papers yesterday. No price tag was announced, and the deal should close in September. One of the papers, the Shenzhen Evening News shown below, also announced in an unrelated development that

three batches of Red Bull drinks tested positive for cocaine in Hong Kong. The density of the dissolved chemical was 10 times greater than what was discovered earlier in Taiwan, but is still harmless, according to Hong Kong authorities. However, a second round of tests conducted yesterday in Hong Kong found no traces of cocaine in Red Bull, the government announced today.

If the Chinese build cars as well as they do drug testing, we’re all in trouble.

Which would you rather have: a Hummer, a Knight XV, or cocaine-laced Red Bull?

—jgoods

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