“Help Me Choose A Car” Twitter Contest Results!

“Help Me Choose A Car” Twitter Contest Results!

It’s been more than a week, which means the time has come to announce the winners of my ‘Help Me Choose a Car’ Twitter contest. To refresh your memory, the categories were:

1) Worst suggestion.
2) I’d buy it if I could find it.
3) Biggest surprise.

The first category was hard, because everyone found a LOT of really bad suggestions (some of which were unintentional). But the winner of the prized Hummer bedsheets is Noah Wheeler, who found a great eBay listing for one of the worst cars in existence, the 1983 Zimmer Golden Spirit. Interestingly, our runner-up, Wilson Elias, would’ve been the winner, but he didn’t provide a listing for his 1982 Pontiac Phoenix suggestion — merely a photo. This could be because there is not one single 1982 Pontiac Phoenix left on earth. Honorable mention goes to John Bradley, who found a local Chrysler TC by Maserati that only cost $1,500. Ouch.

The second category (the Jeep baseball hat) goes, hands-down, to Tim Brown, who suggested a Lamborghini LM002. My initial plan was to simply buy one of these without doing a big thread, but I later discovered they simply do not exist on the used market, and even if they DID exist, you’d never be able to maintain one.

The final prize, the Cadillac Escalade towel, is awarded to JQJ, who brilliantly recommended a 2004 Ford F-750 with six doors that was located in Florida. Now, I know there were some great suggestions out there for this one (Noble, Rossion, Panoz, Morgan 3-Wheeler) but I had to award it to JQJ because not only does this vehicle include smoke stacks, lifted suspension, a matte finish, and like a dozen lights on the roof, it also has 290,000 miles on the odometer, according to the seller – who, by the way, wants $45,000 for it. Runners up here include Ben Pugliares, who suggested the Lancia Delta Integrale (which I hadn’t realized is legal!) and AlmightyPants, who came up with the Citroen DS – a car that would be tons of fun to write about every week.

As for the search itself, it’s coming along just fine. I’ve narrowed it down to about 20 unique cars, all of which are very cool – think Aston, Bentley, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Lotus, Morgan, Noble, Pinzgauer, Porsche, Rolls-Royce, Unimog, etc. In other words: all exotics in some way, shape, or form. I submitted one car to a pre-purchase inspection last week, but unfortunately it failed – so I have another scheduled for this week on a different car. The process has been filled with several interesting stories, and it’ll be fun to explain everything when the decision is made and the car is here.

Thanks for playing, everyone, and enjoy the holidays. I’m looking forward to a fun 2014 with whatever car it ends up being!

8 Responses to “ ““Help Me Choose A Car” Twitter Contest Results!”

  1. becauseCAR says:

    No Mosler in the running! FOR SHAME!

  2. Roger says:

    “I submitted one car to a pre-purchase inspection last week…”

    I have had five possible used car purchases inspected by an independent, brand specialist and every single one of the cars had some kind of problem – one was going to need $3,500 worth of engine work.

    A pre-purchase inspection of a used car is the smartest $200-$300 a person will ever spend on a car. It is definitely worth the money and time.

  3. Jeff Beeton says:

    Doug,

    How about a Pontiac Aztec, complete with the tent attachment and the broken windshield of the Bryan Cranston vehicle in Breaking Bad.

    I work a retirement job as a chauffeur for a limousine company and one of our female drivers said her Aztec was the best car she had ever owned. Go figure.

  4. Hi:
    Could you enlighten me about why the Zimmer is a bad car? First time I’ve heard about those, and well, yeah, those are ugly and kinda Frankenstein of vehicle, but that’s not inherent wrong, no?

    Thanks!

  5. I’d like to point out that one of my early car memories was shopping for a replacement for our family’s 1970 Cougar. It was 1982 and that thing had rusted to shit: my brother and i literally poked holes in the body panels. Anyway, I actually remember sitting in a 1982 Phoenix as a 5 year old. We had a ’77 Grand Safari, so Pontiac must have made some sense. The Phoenix was so bad that my Dad instead opted for a completely stripped 1982 Escort. It came with no radio, manual steering, and a non-functional dealer-installed rear defroster. I love that Escort to this day because it got me excited about manual transmissions…it was the only car my father has owned in my lifetime that had a stick! 4 on the floor to be exact, as the 5-speed was not even an option in the ‘scort at the time.

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