Actually, Jack, it was your good friend Lauren who make NACTOY pay-to-play.
When Chris and Tony ran it, it was financially supported entirely by the jurors. Lauren and her bf(f) Paul had the idea to turn it into a profit making venture. Then she got caught by a PR person offering to pimp cars on Fox & Friends for a pile of money, with a strong hint that such patronage would buy some NACTOY votes as well. She actually put this in writing. Some of the NACTOY judges wanted to share what she wrote with other jurors. Lauren threatened to sue them into silence. Since she makes so much money from her Fox News grift and her husband's business, they took the threat seriously and backed down.
While NACTOY wasn't supposed to be political, she made sure that all her fellow officers were Trump supporters. You didn't mention any of the right-leaning has-beens who created the mess that Nicole was trying to fix.
Car manufacturers no longer care about NACTOY because Lauren made it so expensive to win, plus the only way to get votes is to give spots on international press trips to nobodies with no audience (so you would be perfect, Jack).
I heard Nicole was trying to get NACTOY back to what it was before Lauren and her cronies took it over: a true, honest, not-for-profit operation like it was 20 years ago. Too bad she gave up. Good luck to Jill, who is well known, well liked, and well respected.
Appreciate the comment, I've pinned it so readers can see a contrasting opinion.
I'll thank you in the future not to refer to me as a "nobody", everybody knows I was the runner-up in the 1988 Dublin High School talent show, performing a critically acclaimed rendition of "Tequila Sunrise" by the Eagles on a 1972 Gibson J-40. We haven't even considered my professional cycling career in which I won dozens of dollars.
The most entertaining part is the "nobodies like you" comment. It implies that the humans engaged in writing about automobiles in the current year believe that there are "somebodies" in that pay for play shit show.
Being the best at using AI to re-write press releases doesn't make you a somebody. Repeatedly throating PR people from the manufacturers you like best doesn't either. Not even getting pulled over by a suburban police department while driving an SUV that you could never afford makes you a somebody.
By the way, how much do you think Joel Feder loved that attention? I know people here in Murderapolis who know him, and apparently he's still breathlessly sharing the play by play of his brush with the law with anyone who will listen. Stretch that 15 minutes as far as it'll go, right?
All of this is brilliant to my best knowledge Volkswagen of Naples managed to repossess all of the GTI’s. We had to land motor trend in exchange for the award.
Jack, what I really meant to say was that to my best knowledge Volkswagen of Naples all the GTI’s that motor trend demanded and I know because I was the guy who tried
I'm sad about this because somehow I got from the USENET in 1987 to today without ever seeing it used that way. What else have I missed. As will Ferrell says, there might be cool panties I don't even know about.
I guess. All we have around here are women who win races and punch men hard enough to knock them down. I think the definition of "strong womyn" ain't that.
Normally when is see a picture of woman I wonder under what circumstances i might be tempted, you know like stuck on dessert island. Ita a man thing, they go into one of two categories. Obviously there are age cutoffs and any who are related to any friends etc go into the I or wouldn't even think about it box.
In this case there is no age, or freind relation cutoff or even large size or whatever its just a definitely wouldn't which is pretty telling from a picture, im seeing grade A Karen with zero sensuality or passion. Kinda like a modern car then.
At one point my marriage councilor suggested that many couples benefit from CBT, no further context. I told the therapist and my wife that there was no way I would be going down that road...
If you won't listen to the therapist, why are you surprised when nothing works out? Why not just TRY a little whip to the sac and see what happens? Sheesh.
The Spectrum (or Isuzu I-Mark?!) in the center was the odd one out, being much later ‘80s. The Citation II with the integrated mirrors was ca. 1984, and the Escort appears to be 1983 at the oldest because of the grille.
They'd be "profitable" if they eliminated this contribution. SAE has 94 million in revenue. NACTOTY should probably stop donating. They have 180k in cash and cash equivalents so they should be able to service at least 5 more years. I'd not mark them as a going concern in an audit but I am also not an auditor.
So they're paying $27k for accounting for a business that involves fewer people than the average Cessna flight. The 81k in 'other' expenses aren't helping, either. From Part IX, line 11(g), and the attached Schedule O:
SOCIAL MEDIA SUPPORT 8,000.
PUBLIC RELATIONS 50,916.
MEMBER COMMUNTICATIONS/RESEARCH 22,305.
They're probably too small potatoes for an audit, which is a shame.
Theyre paying 27k for accounting because someone is requiring an audit. A 27k audit is cheap. We do non profit work and it’s non profitable for us. Some of the worst work in the business
Your assessment would suggest you rather let it burn to the ground and then start from scratch with the serious players, rather than salvage with the bad ones still around.
I retract my comment from two posts ago wherein I expressed hope that you were feeling better about life. You're obviously spiraling. Maybe you should ask the Commander for instructions on how to get out of a stall?
I'm glad you threw your hat [back] into the ring, against the odds. Like any business or entity that wholly adopts a left-espousing worldview aka the business stops being about their business and becomes about the religion of said left, that marks the commencement of its descent into inevitable irrelevancy and often destruction.
While I generally hate my job, I do like getting to see and touch and (sorta) drive pretty much everything.
Also keeps me relatively knowledgeable about the industry at large and the ebbs and flows of it all.
Can’t say I’m super well qualified to give actual driving impressions, but I know more than most and I can tell you what cars feel better, look better, and hold up better over time
I am currently a former driver but did operate a variety of motor vehicles for many years, all gasoline powered, some automatic, some manual and one convertible (which I loved dearly), a '49 Chevy with a zip out rear window that allowed me to transport my surfboard with ease.
I don't understand how a "Car of the Year" can be selected. Vehicles are so varied and designed for such a variety of uses, traverse a huge price range and satisfy in so many subjective ways, the task seems impossible.
Example, you think your Lincoln Continental is a great car. I think its nothing but a liability, making you a target in almost any public parking lot.
Put another way, when it comes to automobiles, sauce for the goose is not necessarily sauce for the gander.
I’d like to think that there are smart enough people involved in NACTOY who recognize this as an existential threat and see an obvious need to improve their testing, methodology, and maybe even just their grift.
The funny thing about a grift: if you keep it going long enough to improve it to the point of being self sustaining, it’s actually no longer a grift. You could do this!
Oh, I’m sure there’s benefits like luxury travel, better PR placement with the OEMs, etc for being a juror. Let’s not overcomplicate this, just appeal to their own greed and self interest. If successful at turning it around, Jack would actually stand a decent chance of making things even *cushier* for them, and maybe bring some industry status with it as well!!!
It’s not really a grift though no one is getting paid. It’s like being a reddit moderator. Theyre in it for the insanelynlow levels of power they can wield
Jack - I see what you did there with your opening image. My question for you is: do you honestly believe that you would have made better OTY selections _in the moment_ rather than with 30 years of historical knowledge? Just as one example: I feel like the Citation was a defensible selection - everything else in that period was either old RWD platforms or K-cars.
I once bought a Renault Alliance because it was Motor Trend's "Car of the Year" (1983). I bought it with 3000 miles on the clock, and it was blowing oil like the Exxon Valdez. The timing chain had eaten a hole in the housing (or some such), and I bought the car, tore off the front half of the engine, replaced the timing chain and related parts and had a 3000 mile car for about $4000.
3000 miles later, the timing chain ate a hole in the new cover.
I learned a very valuable lesson. The car that replaced it was a Mazda 626 (which was brilliant) and which had won not a single compro-test or award from any auto-rag.
The world needs fair and unbiased guidance, and a real autopress. Alas, we have neither.
If you can get this done, Jack -- you would definately help make the world a better place. I hope you can.
IT WAS! I thought it was the coolest thing I'd ever seen. So did my 3 y/o daughter, who grabbed it (while oscilatong) and stripped the little plastic gears so it oscillated no more.
It was a 5 speed as well. I loved that car, we just outgrew it as a family.
One of my college roomates had one of those, it was brilliant! 5 spd as well. Unfortunately he was t-boned by an ambulance one night. He was ok but the 626 was a goner
I used to blindly support such claims a while ago. I have to say, though, I could picture myself in an Alpine A110! Also, while the rear seat space of it is utter nonsense, I really like the new Renault 5 EV.
The French have a certain design flair, as did the Italains. Now thta the Italain auto industry other than ferrai and lambo docent really exist, Im hopeful that the French might give us some stylish moderately priced cars. The recently departed a110 was brilliant and the R5 ev seems to be the one ev yet produced you'd actual enjoy to own.
Its possible if not probable that the resurrected alpine brand could produce stylish appealing no too big cars for drivers that occupy the space lotus porche and Ferrari used to when they ere legit cars for enthusiasts.
But yes the track record of french cars is not great. But any contry that coudl produce a Citoen Ds or the a110 has possibility.
Actually, Jack, it was your good friend Lauren who make NACTOY pay-to-play.
When Chris and Tony ran it, it was financially supported entirely by the jurors. Lauren and her bf(f) Paul had the idea to turn it into a profit making venture. Then she got caught by a PR person offering to pimp cars on Fox & Friends for a pile of money, with a strong hint that such patronage would buy some NACTOY votes as well. She actually put this in writing. Some of the NACTOY judges wanted to share what she wrote with other jurors. Lauren threatened to sue them into silence. Since she makes so much money from her Fox News grift and her husband's business, they took the threat seriously and backed down.
While NACTOY wasn't supposed to be political, she made sure that all her fellow officers were Trump supporters. You didn't mention any of the right-leaning has-beens who created the mess that Nicole was trying to fix.
Car manufacturers no longer care about NACTOY because Lauren made it so expensive to win, plus the only way to get votes is to give spots on international press trips to nobodies with no audience (so you would be perfect, Jack).
I heard Nicole was trying to get NACTOY back to what it was before Lauren and her cronies took it over: a true, honest, not-for-profit operation like it was 20 years ago. Too bad she gave up. Good luck to Jill, who is well known, well liked, and well respected.
This has exactly as much chance of being Princess Diana as it has of being Henry Payne.
Henry is:
0. A Substacker with his own identity;
1. Someone I see at the races multiple times a year;
2. Not a giant pussy who is afraid of crippled 54-year-old fathers.
Got it. I did not consider that. It did not fit what I briefly read about him.
Hilarously, Well Known Jill owes her five minutes of fame entirely to Jack Posobiec and the Gateway Pundit
Well let's not forget the dudes who used to beat their meat to her trunk content. Judging by the above comment there's at least one of them.
Bro created a separate substack just to write that. That is dedication.
I just hope I never pass out drunk somewhere he is around, I'll wake up with the hair sucked off my shaft.
Appreciate the comment, I've pinned it so readers can see a contrasting opinion.
I'll thank you in the future not to refer to me as a "nobody", everybody knows I was the runner-up in the 1988 Dublin High School talent show, performing a critically acclaimed rendition of "Tequila Sunrise" by the Eagles on a 1972 Gibson J-40. We haven't even considered my professional cycling career in which I won dozens of dollars.
Love it!
Imagine caring so much about something that a guy who buys anywhere between three and eight cars a year has never heard of. Complete circle jerk.
Also NACTOY sounds like some kind of Asian sex robot convention.
I would go to THAT.
The most entertaining part is the "nobodies like you" comment. It implies that the humans engaged in writing about automobiles in the current year believe that there are "somebodies" in that pay for play shit show.
Being the best at using AI to re-write press releases doesn't make you a somebody. Repeatedly throating PR people from the manufacturers you like best doesn't either. Not even getting pulled over by a suburban police department while driving an SUV that you could never afford makes you a somebody.
By the way, how much do you think Joel Feder loved that attention? I know people here in Murderapolis who know him, and apparently he's still breathlessly sharing the play by play of his brush with the law with anyone who will listen. Stretch that 15 minutes as far as it'll go, right?
All of this is brilliant to my best knowledge Volkswagen of Naples managed to repossess all of the GTI’s. We had to land motor trend in exchange for the award.
Jack, what I really meant to say was that to my best knowledge Volkswagen of Naples all the GTI’s that motor trend demanded and I know because I was the guy who tried
FYI I believe "TIA" means "Thanks in Advance". She looks like the type who trafficks in snobby snark...
You could easily be right!
...disclaimer: I'm not extremely online, so my Newspeak isn't sharp..
im chronically online and im bascially certain youre correct
I had to look it up, but the meaning of the acronym is correct.
....not tits in action???
Or This is Africa?
The one thing ACF is missing.
Hey, we all remember when I posted my ex in a tight T-shirt for the TTAC readers, right?
If you don't, it's here, but at the resolution of TTAC circa 2009:
https://cdn-fastly.thetruthaboutcars.com/media/2022/07/17/8993210/ask-the-best-brightest-is-vodka-s-future-just-a-mirage.jpg
Is that a blue 350Z? You do have a type
cannons.
more importantly they had 370zs that long ago? where does time fly
Yep - that's one acronym that's been around since Al Gore invented the internet.
I'm sad about this because somehow I got from the USENET in 1987 to today without ever seeing it used that way. What else have I missed. As will Ferrell says, there might be cool panties I don't even know about.
Not knowing is an indicator that you haven’t worked around enough strong womyn.
I guess. All we have around here are women who win races and punch men hard enough to knock them down. I think the definition of "strong womyn" ain't that.
Normally when is see a picture of woman I wonder under what circumstances i might be tempted, you know like stuck on dessert island. Ita a man thing, they go into one of two categories. Obviously there are age cutoffs and any who are related to any friends etc go into the I or wouldn't even think about it box.
In this case there is no age, or freind relation cutoff or even large size or whatever its just a definitely wouldn't which is pretty telling from a picture, im seeing grade A Karen with zero sensuality or passion. Kinda like a modern car then.
I thought a TIA was a transient ischemic attack (aka, a minor stroke). Which would explain a lot.
Haha
At one point my marriage councilor suggested that many couples benefit from CBT, no further context. I told the therapist and my wife that there was no way I would be going down that road...
If you won't listen to the therapist, why are you surprised when nothing works out? Why not just TRY a little whip to the sac and see what happens? Sheesh.
I was TRIGGERED by seeing the 3 cars on that graphic at the top. Now you need to provide me with some better meds to let me sleep at night!
And yet…any of the three would be better than any new car on offer today.
well, no. I owned an X-car. It had some good points, and a lot of BAD points, and durability was, to be charitable, lacking.
Yeah...we had a few of them. They had plenty of flaws, but unlike a 2026 Suburban, catastrophic engine failure wasn't one of them.
The other two were; in hindsight, fairly durable little buggies if cared for.
no, just catastrophic transmission failure. ugh.
I’m fairly certain the Citation II pictured has a small gold Oldsmobile rocket emblem where the bowtie on the grille would be.
It's not a real illustration; the first time Gemini tried it, I got a Citation with the body of a 4-door Omega.
c'mon, let's not get carried away now
The graphic cracked me up, but I was thinking shouldn’t one of the cars be a clapped out first generation Ford Explorer, Eddie Bauer edition in green?
That was a generation later.
The graphic is all from 1981 ish.
The Spectrum (or Isuzu I-Mark?!) in the center was the odd one out, being much later ‘80s. The Citation II with the integrated mirrors was ca. 1984, and the Escort appears to be 1983 at the oldest because of the grille.
Hmmm, it looked like early 80’s Citation, Escort and Omni to me. But my memory is getting bad.
On the bright side, she's worth every penny they're paying her
https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/813797373/202640709349300414/full
The bulk of the money they aren't making is going here
https://www.sae.org/
They'd be "profitable" if they eliminated this contribution. SAE has 94 million in revenue. NACTOTY should probably stop donating. They have 180k in cash and cash equivalents so they should be able to service at least 5 more years. I'd not mark them as a going concern in an audit but I am also not an auditor.
So they're paying $27k for accounting for a business that involves fewer people than the average Cessna flight. The 81k in 'other' expenses aren't helping, either. From Part IX, line 11(g), and the attached Schedule O:
SOCIAL MEDIA SUPPORT 8,000.
PUBLIC RELATIONS 50,916.
MEMBER COMMUNTICATIONS/RESEARCH 22,305.
They're probably too small potatoes for an audit, which is a shame.
Theyre paying 27k for accounting because someone is requiring an audit. A 27k audit is cheap. We do non profit work and it’s non profitable for us. Some of the worst work in the business
I'd take that Escort wagon from the image. Did Escort win NACTOY?
My family had one. I learned to drive in it. It wasn’t bad, if you were in no hurry whatsoever to get where you were going.
The manual shift ones were ok ish
The automatic ones were awful.
Yeah i put a lot of miles on manual Ericas.
Without context that sounds like a lot of avoidable contact
Your assessment would suggest you rather let it burn to the ground and then start from scratch with the serious players, rather than salvage with the bad ones still around.
Are we still talking about NACTOY?
I retract my comment from two posts ago wherein I expressed hope that you were feeling better about life. You're obviously spiraling. Maybe you should ask the Commander for instructions on how to get out of a stall?
Oh, I'm doing fine enough, you should see me curling 110 pounds!
Fuckin' a.
https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/01-gettyimages-1369906794.JPG?c=16x9&q=w_1544,c_fill/f_avif
What difference does it make at this point…I paraphrase…
Nactoy is worthless in my estimation, the corruption of this body and the automakers is questionable at best.
I seem to recall it was corrupt as far back as the 1970s.
NACTOY only dates to 1994 but MT has always been corrupt.
Yep.
Does that mean that the Citroen SM didn’t win the 1972 MY COTY solely on its own merits?
I don't want to believe that!
I'm glad you threw your hat [back] into the ring, against the odds. Like any business or entity that wholly adopts a left-espousing worldview aka the business stops being about their business and becomes about the religion of said left, that marks the commencement of its descent into inevitable irrelevancy and often destruction.
The number of NACTOY members who are women enters the conversation
Any more than 1 is too many.
Female dominated orgs are just the Clancy jury.
If you have a man on top, you can somewhat mitigate it. If you have a woman on top it’s a coven
Sadly this form of thinking is taking the whole car industry down.
You got my vote Jack
I think we should do a ACF shitbox of the year award.
We call it the “Avoidable Cars of the Year.”
“Cars to Avoid in 2027”
98.3% and the rest are not that great.
My very weird job has me touching literally thousands of new cars per year. I would be happy to give input where wanted and applicable!
The car whisperer, eh.
I would have loved to have your job from 1965-1971.
While I generally hate my job, I do like getting to see and touch and (sorta) drive pretty much everything.
Also keeps me relatively knowledgeable about the industry at large and the ebbs and flows of it all.
Can’t say I’m super well qualified to give actual driving impressions, but I know more than most and I can tell you what cars feel better, look better, and hold up better over time
Absolutely.
cars to avoid contact with forever
I am currently a former driver but did operate a variety of motor vehicles for many years, all gasoline powered, some automatic, some manual and one convertible (which I loved dearly), a '49 Chevy with a zip out rear window that allowed me to transport my surfboard with ease.
I don't understand how a "Car of the Year" can be selected. Vehicles are so varied and designed for such a variety of uses, traverse a huge price range and satisfy in so many subjective ways, the task seems impossible.
Example, you think your Lincoln Continental is a great car. I think its nothing but a liability, making you a target in almost any public parking lot.
Put another way, when it comes to automobiles, sauce for the goose is not necessarily sauce for the gander.
I’d like to think that there are smart enough people involved in NACTOY who recognize this as an existential threat and see an obvious need to improve their testing, methodology, and maybe even just their grift.
The funny thing about a grift: if you keep it going long enough to improve it to the point of being self sustaining, it’s actually no longer a grift. You could do this!
Improvement only comes from incentives. The only incentive here is if some members care about the award. That’s a big “if.”
Oh, I’m sure there’s benefits like luxury travel, better PR placement with the OEMs, etc for being a juror. Let’s not overcomplicate this, just appeal to their own greed and self interest. If successful at turning it around, Jack would actually stand a decent chance of making things even *cushier* for them, and maybe bring some industry status with it as well!!!
I posted their financials. The travel budget isnt anything special
What was it and how many people do they have? How many trips do they take?
It’s not really a grift though no one is getting paid. It’s like being a reddit moderator. Theyre in it for the insanelynlow levels of power they can wield
This is true: I felt super good about myself when I was a moderator at Simtropolis.com many years ago.
Jack - I see what you did there with your opening image. My question for you is: do you honestly believe that you would have made better OTY selections _in the moment_ rather than with 30 years of historical knowledge? Just as one example: I feel like the Citation was a defensible selection - everything else in that period was either old RWD platforms or K-cars.
The idea of the Citation was what buyers wanted from GM at the time. Execution was another story.
K-Cars drank Citation’s milkshake.
Citation deserved to win, but it shows the limits of an award process like that. It was already killing people when the trophy was handed over.
I once bought a Renault Alliance because it was Motor Trend's "Car of the Year" (1983). I bought it with 3000 miles on the clock, and it was blowing oil like the Exxon Valdez. The timing chain had eaten a hole in the housing (or some such), and I bought the car, tore off the front half of the engine, replaced the timing chain and related parts and had a 3000 mile car for about $4000.
3000 miles later, the timing chain ate a hole in the new cover.
I learned a very valuable lesson. The car that replaced it was a Mazda 626 (which was brilliant) and which had won not a single compro-test or award from any auto-rag.
The world needs fair and unbiased guidance, and a real autopress. Alas, we have neither.
If you can get this done, Jack -- you would definately help make the world a better place. I hope you can.
Was that the 626 with the oscillating air vents in the center stack?
IT WAS! I thought it was the coolest thing I'd ever seen. So did my 3 y/o daughter, who grabbed it (while oscilatong) and stripped the little plastic gears so it oscillated no more.
It was a 5 speed as well. I loved that car, we just outgrew it as a family.
Mazda rocks. The 323 had flapper controlled side dash vents that blew fresh air at car speed like the old corner windows.
the 323 gtx was a sick rally car too
I had one of those, the 5 door, 5 speed. Loved it. Sadly my ex totaled it after a very short time.
Mine was the sedan. It was charcoal gray. Nicest and most grownup car I'd ever had (to that point).
One of my college roomates had one of those, it was brilliant! 5 spd as well. Unfortunately he was t-boned by an ambulance one night. He was ok but the 626 was a goner
All French cars should be automatically disqualified.
I learned so very, very much with that car.
I used to blindly support such claims a while ago. I have to say, though, I could picture myself in an Alpine A110! Also, while the rear seat space of it is utter nonsense, I really like the new Renault 5 EV.
Me too!
seconded on the a110
flyweight frog thing
The French have a certain design flair, as did the Italains. Now thta the Italain auto industry other than ferrai and lambo docent really exist, Im hopeful that the French might give us some stylish moderately priced cars. The recently departed a110 was brilliant and the R5 ev seems to be the one ev yet produced you'd actual enjoy to own.
Its possible if not probable that the resurrected alpine brand could produce stylish appealing no too big cars for drivers that occupy the space lotus porche and Ferrari used to when they ere legit cars for enthusiasts.
But yes the track record of french cars is not great. But any contry that coudl produce a Citoen Ds or the a110 has possibility.
Didn’t keep the Alliance long enough to get the incredible exploding heater core! Good thing!
I was unaware of the expolding heater core, but it tracks.