These Are The Extremely Specific Car Awards Our Readers Wish Were Real

Annual car awards can be fun, but at the same time, there’s only so much they can tell us. That doesn’t mean they’re fake or bought and paid for, but when you only have access to new cars, that’s all you can test. It also means that if competition is weak that year, the car that wins may not ultimately be very good. And that’s even before you get to the potential reliability issues those awards typically don’t (and can’t) take into account. 

On Tuesday, I posited that perhaps the problem with car awards was that they’re too broad to be useful. Perhaps what we really need are much more specific awards that car shoppers may find much more helpful next time they buy. Not everyone would care about the Smallest Diameter Stock OEM Wheels Award, but those who do? It would be invaluable. And I turned to you, the commenters, to suggest these possible ultra-specific car awards. Let’s take a look at some of the most popular suggestions.

Best small car that can fit drivers over 6 feet tall. There’s very few options in the middle of the venn diagram of cars that can easily parallel park in my city that I can fit in. Adding a third circle for performance limits it even more.

Suggested by: Rexx

Best manual controls. Has the easiest to use buttons and interfaces.

Suggested by: OldGuy55

The Built-In Ashtray Memorial Award for functions and features for cars that we feel will be phased out due to societal changes or irrelevancies.

Suggested by: Alf Enthusiast

Very few, if any current cars could win this award, but I’ll still turn into a figurative old man yelling at kids to get off my lawn.

“Easiest car to dismantle the interior for repairs or modifications”.

When I installed a modern touchscreen head unit, some ambient lighting and a backup camera in my NB Miata, it was so easy to take apart the plastic fascia on the dash, as well as pulling up the center console.

Meanwhile, I wanted to install Android Auto in my mother’s 2014 mini countryman, so I tried a test run of dismantling the dash before I ordered anything. It was so difficult and complicated and I was so terrified of breaking things that I just gave up after an hour and told my mother to send it to a garage if she wanted it that badly (She never did).

Suggested by: Mondestine

Best sound system. It’s hard these days. Some “premium” sound packages are trash, with apparently some formerly “prestigious” sound brands willing to put their logo on a $2 speaker. Like some Harmon Kardon systems are still fantastic. But some…aren’t. And some cheaper systems are sneaky good. Quality audiophile reviews can’t get to every new car, and regular car reviews often say very little.

Suggested by: Funkatron

Best Car To Lose In A Divorce

Years ago, Car and Driver declared it to be the Maserati Biturbo because it would inflict maximum pain on the ex spouse while making the one who lost it look like a baller.

Suggested by: Stillnotatony

Grey market import car of the year. Every year given to the automotive gem that can now be imported due to the grey market rule (15 years in Canada, 25 in the US).

Because modern cars suck or are insanely expensive, we need more grey market imports we can actually afford.

Suggested by: ChaosphereVIII

When my dad, brother, grandfather, and I would go to the auto shows, we would award the Funky Drink Holder award to the most convoluted, bizarre, or significantly memorable hidden cupholder we saw. Saab often won but there were others. These days it would probably go to the Audi/Lamborghini ones that are hidden above the glove box.

Suggested by: Frosteeman

BCOTY (Boring Car Of The Year)

Suggested by: jude duval

and

Best not boring car that normal people can actually afford to drive all things considered.
Criteria would include:
Price of the car must be below 25k
Must have a slightly different style or look thats not boring
Must be slightly fun to drive
Must also have good MPG
Insurance needs to be affordable.

Suggested by: Gerrit DeBoer

Best touchscreen enhancement and integration. If basic car functions like tuning the radio or heating controls are touchscreen-only, you’ve lost. If your screen looks like someone glued an iPad to the dashboard, you’ve lost.

Suggested by: Psycho78