2012 SPEEDHUNTERS AWARDS: CAR OF THE YEAR

UJonathan Moore

PDecember 30, 2012

As if making any kind of decision at this time of year wasn’t difficult enough, here comes the biggest challenge, the ultimate vote of votes. What is the overall Car Of The Year for 2012? There were tough choices to be made even before the voting started in this year’s Speedhunters Awards; having to whittle down the lists to the 15 cars that would appear in each category was hard enough – and then you had to vote on them. Now we’ve put together the winners for this final automotive award: the best of the best, the cars that came out on top in each of the car-based polls. We’re asking you to imagine all these winners lined up side by side. Porsche, Lotus, Toyota; old, new, future; racer, street, barely street-legal. But you can only choose one. Which is it to be? First up we have the…

Retro Car Of The Year: 1,000hp Street Sweeper BMW

Oldtimer Car Of The Year: Singer 911

New Car Of The Year: ZN6/ZC6

Street Car Of The Year: Canyon-carving Lotus Elise

Mentalist Car Of The Year: Street-legal Porsche 962

Show Demo Car Of The Year: Rocket Bunny FR-S

Competition Car Of The Year: Nissan Deltawing

#FeatureThis Award: S30 From Lithuania

So if you thought Competition Car was a hard choice and contained difficult options, now it’s down to you to decide which car deserves the overall title: what is your Car Of The Year for 2012?

Jonathan Moore

Speedhunters Awards 2012

Recent Posts

Stop voting for the FR-S it's a sh*t heap

share flag

spam
offensive
disagree
off topic

zamm333 26 pts

Have you ever even driven one.... Or are you just saying this because you've heard its "under powered" and manufactured by Toyota and Subaru...

Okay no denying that the delta wing is by far the most progressive, outrageous, and innovative car on this list, but this is car of the year. Go ahead and take a look back on the speedhunters pages for the past year and tell me if ANYTHING has gotten half the coverage or public interest that the zn6 chassis has. Loads of people in the world could care less about billion dollar race cars but an affordable sports car with driver experience on the top of the priorities list is an attention grabber to everyone who's remotely interested in driving. If the category were most innovative race car of the year, the deltawing would steal the show, but its CAR of the year. That's why i voted for the zn6/zc6 (NOT the rocket bunny FR-S) its the biggest game changer in car culture since "stance" hit the scene. By the way this is coming from a 100% Nissan fanboy.

STIsaac 7 pts

@zamm333 That's exactly how I'm looking at it too!

Option86 28 pts

zamm333 Good point.

flyingfridge 11 pts

should be nothing other than the Deltawing. Nothing was more a statement in 2012.

K's 53 pts

Was gonna go with the rocket bunny 86 simply because of all the attention it grabbed, but i gotta go for the deltawing

JakubKristof 5 pts

Deltawing.. One doesn't have to say more.

sscotty 7 pts

Where the hell is Under suzuki's S15????

All these cars are wack. I guess being in the modern car "scene" is just being on the band wagon and hipster shit. Call my old fashioned..

kog

If you voted for anything but the Deltawing, you're doing it wrong.

JackOlson 17 pts

Why is the Rocket Bunny FR-S even an option? dude just riveted on some over fenders and now everyone is acting like its the greatest thing to ever happen, chill out.

Aisakey 35 pts

JackOlson Lol, I'd love to see you "riveting on some over fenders" and see what result you obtain. Not sure it would be like that.

RodChong 291 pts moderator

@Aisakey @JackOlson he also designed and manufactured the kit himself.

Earlsimxx 6 pts

Deltawing..the techs have gone through all odds in the development, i believe in the next season Nissan will make big improvements in the racing having learnt a lot from this year's.

I think it's fair to say that the e21 'street sweeper' deserves to be in this category. Aside from the fact that one of the best regular-production engines, EVER, was utilized to produce its 1000+hp, The over-all build is a monument to form following function. The Delta Wing is indeed a game changer, but it's in a whole other league that's backed by a multi-billion dollar company with an R&D department full of engineers, and I feel that it would be easy to vote it #1. I recommend reading the Gatebil feature again, and the mod list at the end.

JustinLancon 5 pts

The Singer. Nobody has put more effort into improving and massaging a classic car up to modern car standards while maintaining the car's original look and spirit. The work they do is worthy of Porsche, and the tuning industry has much to learn about how to treat classics from Singer.

Pwain 8 pts

gotta give it to the deltawing

GraysonParker 32 pts

This year's candidates don't seem like they have as much soul as past years. They seem to be a little too boring. I hate saying a 962 and a 1000 hp bimmer are boring, but they just seem too... GOOD

Golightly 17 pts

962. Anything else is a poor choice.

FrancescoDiGiuseppe 37 pts

This post says "Best car of the year": it means that you are voting for something more innovative than a tuned bimmer.The 86 brought back the attention on fun more than on hp, but compared to the Deltawing it simply can't compete.The Deltawing is such a surprise: I wish people would consider it a little bit more, because it's such a breakthrough.

Antonis_K 8 pts

FrancescoDiGiuseppe 100% agree!

Max_Ryde 6 pts

Too all who vote for the BMW, you have too know that driving a 1000hp prepared street car, is the worst shit ever. Even if she is pretty, it can't be a good car....

SMRacing 14 pts

@Max_Ryde what do you know? have you any experience ? my dad drives his european 1978 ford granada with a 2400 hp twin turbo 715cui v8 all summer , and i cant think of one car i would rather cruise around in the long summer nights.. and still it handels more than good enough to do burnouts att well above 200kmh.. just sayin

@SMRacing 2400hp? the fuck? Yes I have experiences. One day americans will discover manual transmission. Hahaha

@Max_Ryde americans ? if youre thinking im from america thats wrong, im from norway ;) And if youre saying that manual transmissions is not for cruising I would not agree, with todays technology a 1000hp cruisable manual transmission is no problem, but i cant say it would be cheap.. and cheap is what most guys use :)

SMRacing Max_Ryde drove a 2000hp maro from Nelson Racing n even the techs themselves agree..thats not a car to "cruise in the long nights" however, depends on what u do with such engines, in my opinion, such power is meant for the track and track alone. #ijs

Earlsimxx Max_Ryde Then that maro was probably not built to be a street car :) most people would agree that this kind of power is meant to be on a track ect.. but what most people dont seem to understand is that its the drivers right foot that is in control of all those hp, it doesent have to be pedal to the metal all the time, and it shouldnt because its driven on the street

Corey K

This was too hard, so I voted for DCW's S30Z, because he's also exported an FR-S to Lithuania that he's making amazing parts for the whole community. You know, affordable stuff unlike the Rocket Bunny kit. Also because the S30Z is one of the best cars ever made ;)

Zlatan 6 pts

I actually think that Rocket Bunny is pretty damn stupid....

Kermo 13 pts

Nissan Deltawing! Because it´s a complete game changer of what we know a race car or a car in that matter should be!

Acc

Kermo

exactly, no one expected it to do any corners, and would have done a good race if it hadn't been crashed. Don't get what the Rocket Bunny FR-S does here, I mean, yeah, its a nice body kit, but apart from that its a pretty normal build.

Conversation from Twitter

Allyson58bokr @Allyson58bokr 30 Dec

@CarsPhotoRD http://t.co/cwOiySOD

Favorite Retweet Reply

05150618 @05150618 30 Dec

@kou4088 Ｚ良いですネェ〜(//∇//)nでも、ハチロク嫌い(￣Д￣)ﾉ AE86なら好き♪( ´▽｀)

kou4088 @kou4088 30 Dec

@05150618 色が良いですよね！