I think he completely understood your post.

 

*sigh* I swear this place gets worse every day. I guess I have to spell it out for those among us with weak reading comprehension skills.

I was not criticizing the C&D or MT methodology. In fact I offered NO opinion of ANY kind regarding their methodologies. Read my original post for as many times as it takes for you to understand this.

What I did do was point out that it is unfair to be critical of Motor Trend's Car of the Year voting process while applauding C&D when C&D pretty much uses the same method.



Full disclosure - I hate Motor Trend and have been a C&D subscriber for more than 15 years so don't think this is a simple case of MT fanboy leg humping. Don't mistake me for a C&D fanboy either. I've seen enough of their double standards over the years (i.e. brushing off wheel hop in a 911 while villifying a CTS for the same thing, etc, etc). I'm no fan of this new group of Car & Driver writers either.

 

Maybe its an age thing because I understood you.

I've subscribed to MT, C&D and R&T in the past. I no longer do. There are good reasons for that. (FWIW my only current subscriptions are Car Craft, Hot Rod and Playboy. )

 

I think it's great that GM is finally moving back into the winner's circle with its new cars.

...And I also think it's great that the GTI made the 10Best list

 

The GTI is an awesome little car. If I wasn't such a lardass I might consider one.

 

I always preferred C&D because at least they wear their biases loud and proud. No question that they love BMW, Honda, and the Corvette to death. MT always seemed more like industry groupthink to me.

And GM hasn't had a mainstream sedan on this list since like forever, so this is indeed great news for them.

 

I still put absolutely no confidence in anything the magazines say.

I'm still unhappy that when the GTO was tested by....crap I forget who.....and while it won more test criteria it lost in the "gotta have it" department.

I used to read MT but I've really gone away from that. I don't even think we still get MT or C&D, but my dad does occasionally drop some off.

 

That be Car & Driver. They were having some sort of beef with Bob Lutz at the time, and vice versa.

Their 1st test of the GTO was all but glowing, but in typical C&D fashion, they nitpicked insignificant items out of proportion. GTO was Lutz's 1st baby. C&D then suddenly went on some type of vendetta against the GTO. The article you mention, the GTO was obviously the better car by the magazine's own criteria. However, they couldn't resist throwing sand in Lutz face (he threatened to pull GM advertizing from magazines and media that treated GM vehicles unfairly in their testing) by making the car lose by using a Lutz quote ("cars with a 'gotta-have-it' factor) as a catagory.

There was another article where C&D took a press GTO, took it racing, and supposedly bent the chassis (keep in mind, these cars were tested in the unpaved Australian outback as part of their development and came equipted with skidplates!) and then had the nerve to slam the car as cheaply built.

Car & Driver and Bob Lutz seem to have reached a stalemate, where he's no longer threatened to pull advertizing for unfair reviews, and Car & Driver is actually treating GM cars fairly, going so far as putting a Malibu on their "10 bests" lists.

 

Motor Trend was my favorite mag when I was growing up. I was won over by Car & Driver when someone on the schoolbus was reading an April 1977 Car and Driver and let be glance through it. I loved it so much, I bought one myself.... still have it!

There was one article that won me over: The "Double The Double Nickle" comparison test, where they rented out a then-new state-of-the-art test track in Ohio, gathered cars from each manufacturer that could at least run 110 mph, and tested them at high speed.

Lots of surprises in that article. The highest top speed car Ford could muster was a T-bird. None of GM's new midsize cars with turbo V6s, or 4 barrel V8s could qualify for the test. Not only was Dodge's only entry a Pickup truck (the Lil Red Express Truck), but that same pickup truck turned out to be the fastest accelerating vehicle at the test (which included the Trans Am and the L82 Corvette!) and turned out to be one of the quickest accelerating factory regular production vehicles available in the US.

One great article created a lifelong reader.

 

GM's new crop of vehicles are certainly going in the right direction. I'll take the MT COY and C&D's 10 best but I'd rather have great sales in the marketplace and not to fleets either.

 

good job GM. however, i dont think the mx-5 or the gti should be on the list. the sky/solstice got better reviews and vw has been having horrible quality issues.

 

I got hooked on C/D in the mid-80s during their irreverent period, and it was also quite good in the 90s with off-the-wall writers like John Phillips and Dan Neil. Like someone above said, the recent crop isn't very good, and I think it's time they replace Csaba Csere and get some fresh blood. Although I periodically subscribe to the other mags, C/D is the only one I keep, and I still have every issue from the mid-90s up, and many back to the early 80s.

Motor Trend was always a joke, and it's fairly well known that their COTY "award" simply went out to the highest bidder for many years. I think it's better now and they seem to have a bit more integrity, but it's hard to shake a bad reputation.

 

Another Car & Driver contradiction?

The CTS gets in the "10 Best" but places 3rd in a field of 4 sport sedans in a comparison test in the same issue. Of course BMW 3-series gets first which is always in the "10 Best" every year. But 2nd place goes to the Infinity G35 sedan, which was not on the the "10 Best" list.

I loved Motor Trend back in the late 80s and early 90s. My favorite issues that I looked foward to every year was the "Bang for the Buck" and "Top Speed" issues. They always had great photography back then too, I remember those nice pullout pages that full page phots that showed cars all grouped together in formation on some super long test track.

Motor Trend is a complete joke now.

 

Did you read the article?

For whatever reason, the manual CTS used in the comparison test was a very different animal than the automatic car used in the 10 Best evaluation.

I'd usually never think of backing them on one of their inconsistencies but this time they did explain the reason behind it and if true, it does seem valid IMO.

 

The comparison test was focused moreso on driving experience than luxury or value. That's why the CTS didn't do so hot.

I'm assuming for the 10 best list they looked at the car based on its own merits and didn't try to judge it in a way it wasn't designed to be judged.

The CTS-V can't come fast enough though - Caddy has a great car here but it's being regarded as a softy due to its poor acceleration numbers and so-so chassis dynamics. Caddy really needs to work on offering a little more powerful non -V motor for the CTS to overcome the heft of the new CTS. 300hp doesn't sound bad at all but once you drive it, it's just not enough relative to cars like the G35, IS350, and 335i.