On Cloud Nine: At Best Driver’s Car, Things Aren’t What They Seem

There is an apocryphal tale of the famous hotelier Conrad Hilton’s appearance on “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.”

When Carson asked if there was anything Hilton would like to tell the millions of people in the TV audience, Hilton masterfully seized the moment and medium by looking straight into the camera and saying, “Please remember to put the shower curtain inside the tub.”

My turn. To participate in Motor Trend’s Best Driver’s Car competition, a vehicle must be all-new or substantially updated, and road-legal in America. That’s why you will not find an M3 or any version of Corvette, Koenigsegg, or Pagani in this year’s contest. Why no Viper, Boxster, or F12 Berlinetta? The cars also must be available at the time we run our test.

So what makes the best driver’s car? Parse the list of past winners for clues: Ferrari 458 (2011), Porsche Cayman S (2009), and Audi R8 (2008).

Notice a theme? If you said mid-engine, rear drive, and probably eight cylinders, you’d have to choose the McLaren MP4-12C out of this year’s field. And it would be a good choice. The MP4-12C set one of the fastest production car lap times Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca has ever seen.

Here’s the rub: Best Driver’s Car has never been solely about the car that sets the fastest lap time. It’s not about the car that has the most horsepower or generates the most extreme set of data points. BDC is also about the intangibles, many of which are found in Jonny Lieberman’s splendid prose and through our photo staff’s amazing work on MotorTrend.com and in the November 2012 issue of Motor Trend.

Many more can be found in the mind-blowing set of videos our team created in support of this competition. We produced a lap video on all nine of the competitors, along with a 40-minute feature profiling the selection process. We also produced “The World’s Greatest Drag Race 2,” the sequel to our extremely popular video from last year’s competition, and several other teasers and behind-the-scenes featurettes. All told, there are more than a dozen videos on this year’s competition, all available at www.youtube.com/motortrend.

I hope you enjoyed our Best Driver’s Car competition online and coming soon in the November issue. I know it has infuriated some people, and has sparked more than a few debates. If it didn’t, we wouldn’t be doing our job. We’re already preparing for next year, so if you have suggestions on how to make it better or just want to vent your spleen, find me on Twitter @EdLoh. I tweet back.