You heeded our call. You nominated the cars you considered the best of the best. Without fear or favor, TTAC’s tenacious tribe of telic keyboard tappers selected twenty vehicles from your list of over a hundred superlative automobiles. You voted for 10 of them, creating our first annual Ten Best Automobiles. The voting was often extremely close, but the end result was never in doubt: a selection of ten automobiles that any self-respecting motorist would be proud to own, and delighted to drive. Ladies and gentlemen, raise your tea mugs as I present to you: TTAC’s Ten Best for 2007.

Imagine a different GM from today’s confused and embattled automaker. A General Motors where each division has a clear and coherent brand, universally known and recognized by automotive consumers. Where each division’s image and related price range is unique, without overlap. Where each division is the dominant brand– or at least highly competitive– in its respective market segment. Welcome to General Motors circa 1930.

My wife struggles with two automotive tasks: finding her destination and maneuvering the car into a parking space. (Locating a parking space is another issue, but why make her sound any more spatially challenged than she is?) The only voice my wife follows without question emanates from her car’s navigation system. So, issue number one sorted. Until now, she has endured her parking problem by opting for garages or HUGE spots. When she heard about the Lexus LS’ new automated parking system, she sent me to the dealer to check it out.

Nine countries in the world have nuclear weapons. Oddly enough, that’s the same number of nations that design and build their own cars from scratch. The two accomplishments don’t have all that much in common, except that the former may indicate just how much scientific and engineering prowess the latter requires. India is one of a handful of states on both lists. The West tends not to think too much about the country’s carmakers because the world’s largest democracy has spent the last 50 years making cars for India, and India alone. That’s changing. Fast.

It was the mother of all drifts. Forty feet behind me, the back of the passenger bus was coming around fast, threatening to wipe out a block’s worth of cars parked across the street. By the time I caught the first slide, I had overcompensated. My arms were a whirling dervish on the giant steering wheel, flying back and forth, until the bus straightened out. No need to stop for coffee THAT day; I was wide awake on a triple-shot of adrenalin.

According to market researchers, American car buyers are more likely to ask “will I look cool in this thing?” than “is this the most efficient way to get from point A to point B?” Despite Honda’s rep for building the automotive equivalent of sensible shoes, CEO Kochi Kondo understands that America’s love affair with the automobile gets kinky from time to time. Well if he didn’t before, he does now, after Honda’s bizzaro Element somehow found favor with American grey panther platform refugees. You can almost hear him at the karaoke bar singing “You gotta fight, for your right, to paaaaaarrty!”

As GM tosses the last pieces of furniture into the cash conflagration burning down their house, you are going to see some seriously weird shit. Saturn’s new tagline is the most recent anomaly from the End of Days department: “Rethink American.” Given that the new Saturn Astra will be built in Belgium and the new Saturn Vue will be built in Mexico, you’ve got to wonder what bright spark (no concept car intended) OK’ed an ad campaign based on post-modern irony. Oh wait; they’re serious. They want customers to equate Saturn's Opelized lineup with American patriotism. How bizarre is that?

My father is a car guy in his late fifties. One day, he decided he wanted a sports car. Anyone who’s clocked the age of the men in the Viagra’s ads should realize this isn’t an unusual phenomenon. Men fifty and over are the heart and soul of the U.S. sports car market. And the Chevrolet Corvette occupies the bulls-eye center of that prime demographic. The ‘Vette is also one of GM’s few bright spots: the only world class car in Chevrolet’s showroom of mediocrity. Anyway, my father tried to buy a Corvette– and failed.

You’ve made your nominations. At final count, we received over one hundred entries for our Ten Best Automobiles Going (TBAG). They ranged from the sublime (Ferrari F430 drop top) to the ridiculous (I'm not THAT stupid). Twenty-one of our most expert TTAC writers surveyed each and every entry, and then cast their votes from your list. They narrowed the field to twenty most excellent finalists (listed after the jump). Now it’s your turn. We need you, our well-informed and insightful readers, to link-on-over to our e-poll, cast ten votes and select TTAC’s Ten Best Automobiles Going (TBAG) for 2007.

In January, Gary “Mr. Roadshow” Richards of the San Jose Mercury News argued that hybrid cars with one occupant should be allowed in California carpool lanes because they reduce congestion, gasoline usage and smog. Richards was deploying the exact same argument used to justify the passage of California statute AB 2628 which allowed “solo-carpools” in the first place. Here’s a simple question about the logic employed: was the California Assembly on peyote when they cooked up this crap?

In Greek mythology, Cerberus guarded the gates of Hades. Anyone who challenged the three-headed dog was ripped to shreds. In American business, the Cerberus private equity group guards the investment firm’s cash. Unlike the mythical canine, they don’t wait for foolish interlopers. They seek out struggling companies and rip them to shreds– sorry, “turn them around.” For reasons yet to be revealed, the United Auto Workers (UAW) have welcomed today’s announcement that Cerberus has purchased Chrysler from its German overlords. Is someone about to teach an old dog some new tricks?  

Having wrested the title “world’s largest car manufacturer” from General Motors, Toyota’s already committing some of the same mistakes that brought GM down. The all-new 2008 Scion xB is a blot on Toyota’s relatively unblemished copybook. It bristles with classic GM-think: dumb it down, fatten it up and cheapen it out.

At Thursday's annual Glass House Gang get-together, eight of ten shareholder proposals got the axe. The kyboshed suggestions include a mandate to disclose the identities of all execs collecting upwards of $500k, another giving 10 percent stakeholders the ability to call stockholder meetings, and a directive asking for a strategic plan for Ford’s future health care liabilities. The Ford family also fell under attack via a motion to remove their Class B stock “super- vetoing voting” powers.  It isn’t the first time that the Ford family’s control has come under shareholder scrutiny, but that plebiscite perished too, albeit by a smaller margin than ever before.

“Hi. I’m Jerry Rich.”

As I shake the golf course owner’s hand through the window of our rented Mustang, Rich’s gaze falls on my wife’s jeans.

“You got a hole in your jeans,” he remarks, eyeing my wife’s strategically distressed apparel. 

“I paid good money for those holes,” Sam retorts.

I was one with the universe. Everything around me was aglow in the summer sunlight, twinkling with a profound luster. I was floating serenely in my VW bug through the time space continuum. My consciousness was wide open. And then, in an instant, everything went black.