QOTD: Do You Care About Automotive Awards?
Glossy magazines present multi-page spreads on their winners. Poorly funded websites present annual lists of their favorites. Other organizations that rate all sorts of consumer products give out actual, physical plaques and trophies to their winners.
Yes, we’re talking about automotive awards today. Everybody’s doing it, and with a bit of searching, one might even find a particular grouping of awards which suits their particular special interest.
But do you care?
As you’re a well-read and worldly member of the B&B here at TTAC, we know you cast a more critical eye on everything automotive. Today, we want to know the value you place on the various automotive awards, “Ten Best” lists, and those shiny plaques.
Are any of these awards important to you in selecting a vehicle? Does the J.D. Power award resting atop the hood of a Mercedes-Benz or Honda let you know that there’s a great vehicle behind it?
How about the lengthy results of the Road & Track Performance Car of the Year test? Do the side-by-side comparisons and perfectly produced photos stand for much in the real world, where everyone actually lives?
There’s a darker side to all this as well, and it’s the side where some awards are a profit exercise. In order to participate, manufacturers provide vehicles and pay a fee to the organization doling out the awards. The cars are used in the test, and the fees are used to throw a big, luxurious track day party. But in theory, this isolated example is behind us. Or is it?
When it comes down to it, where do you draw the line? How much do you care about the plaque Toyota receives from the Anonymous Consumer Research Corporation?
[Images: J.D. Power, Subaru]
Interested in lots of cars and their various historical contexts. Started writing articles for TTAC in late 2016, when my first posts were QOTDs. From there I started a few new series like Rare Rides, Buy/Drive/Burn, Abandoned History, and most recently Rare Rides Icons. Operating from a home base in Cincinnati, Ohio, a relative auto journalist dead zone. Many of my articles are prompted by something I'll see on social media that sparks my interest and causes me to research. Finding articles and information from the early days of the internet and beyond that covers the little details lost to time: trim packages, color and wheel choices, interior fabrics. Beyond those, I'm fascinated by automotive industry experiments, both failures and successes. Lately I've taken an interest in AI, and generating "what if" type images for car models long dead. Reincarnating a modern Toyota Paseo, Lincoln Mark IX, or Isuzu Trooper through a text prompt is fun. Fun to post them on Twitter too, and watch people overreact. To that end, the social media I use most is Twitter, @CoreyLewis86. I also contribute pieces for Forbes Wheels and Forbes Home.
More by Corey Lewis
Comments
Join the conversation
The only true award that really matters is the "resell value percentage remains" award. Consumers' own wallets are truth, all others can be corrupted. The problem is it is only useful at the end of a model's run, you won't know what is it good for when a new design came out.
Looking at the Euro COTY list, with prominent winners as Austin 1800 NSU Ro80 Citroën GS Simca-Chrysler Horizon - so no, I can't be bothered. 2011-12 it was two EVs, you know... by accident. We have commercially available EVs since 1996. New cars can't be accurately measured in all possible ways. The new BMW M6 Cabriolet might be the best car, but it is better than the Audi RS4 Convertible? The only objective measure will be a bunch of numbers in two columns and maybe a witty paragraph in the comparison test. None of these cars will be featured 10 years later in Classic & Sports Car. Because they won't be around with their 2-liter 450hp engines, their praised infotainment systems will be hopelessly outdated and unusable.