RawDriving's slightly idiotic Car Of The Year Contest!

It’s been a good year. The Olympics were on, so BMW painted a heap of 3 series’ gold and we all sat on the couch for a couple of weeks and became enormous while watching the worlds greatest athletes compete for glory. The Americans nearly named their president after a small, cute, glove. And the Ice-Man, Kimi Raikkonen, returned to Formula 1 and told his engineers to leave him alone in a flurry of Finnish fury which we all found hilariously entertaining.

Golden BMW 3 Series - Shiny! 

And despite all those crooked bankers ruining the economy it’s been a fantastic year for cars as well. The Toyobaru twins were launched, AMG went mad and released what seems like a million new models, so we picked the best one, the SLS AMG Roadster, Porsche gave us a new and controversial 911, as well as the new Boxster, Ferrari replaced its terrifying 599 with the fantastic F12 Berlinetta, Pagani finally stopped making the Zonda and released the slightly hard to pronounce Huayra, there was a new BMW M5, and of course Nissan updated the GT-R, again. All of these fantastic cars have made it to the final rounds of Raw Driving’s car of the year competition, and our panel of experts -which essentially comprises myself, and well, no one else – will decide which car is crowned the winner.

Now, unfortunately, we couldn’t find anyone who would lend us a Pagani Huayra, or any of these cars for that matter, which does seem odd, since the annual RawDriving Car Of The Year award is such an esteemed and prestigious award, we thought manufacturers would tripping over each other trying to get their cars in with a chance, but that clearly wasn’t the case. I was literally stunned to hear that Pagani wouldn’t send us a Huayra, stunned. So our judging criteria have had to be condensed a little. It is essentially what we think looks and sounds good, and has received some kind of praise from a motoring journalist who evidently knows some people at Pagani and the like.

After lots of in depth thinking and watching of Youtube videos, our field of nine cars was now just three; the Pagani Huayra, Ferrari F12 Berlinetta, and the Mercedes SLS AMG Roadster. And from watching Youtube we can tell you that these three cars are absolutely magnificent.

The Mercedes SLS Roadster is a seriously cool car, which unlike its hardtop counterpart isn’t fitted with explosive doors which open vertically to announce proudly to the world that the person inside is a complete spanner. The 6.2 litre AMG V8 is a snarling tower of power that sounds simply incredible and can be heard all the better with the roof down. And provided you leave all of the safety systems on, it’ll even almost go around corners in a sophisticated manner. But that’s not the AMG way. Switch everything off however, and you’ll be giggling like a child, it’s a complete maniac, and it’s flipping brilliant because of it.

Mercedes SLS AMG Roadster

However, it’s not quite as brilliant as the Ferrari F12. The F12 looks more beautiful for a start, and at 730hp its V12 engine even more powerful than the AMG’s. The engine is a masterpiece it howls and screams, crackles and pops, it does everything you would ever expect from a super car, but it can be comfortable and civilized as well, it’s a proper luxury grand tourer. But turn everything up to eleven and you’ll be amazed at just how easy the F12 is to drive, the steering is razor sharp, completely alive, and super quick, the throttle pedal feels like its connected directly to the drivers brain, and the gearbox is mind blowing, its so fast and so seamless that there is no evident loss of power between gear changes, it just keeps on pulling.

mmmm Ferrari F12 Berlinetta

But then you get into the Pagani Huayra. You’re greeted by a sumptuous combination of carbon fibre and leather, the amount of jewellery and detail that has been lavished on this car is simply incredible. I love the exposed gear shift lever; it almost renders the paddles on the steering wheel pointless. I say almost because you’ll want to keep two hands on the wheel when you drive the Huayra hard. It’s an insane beast. Its twin turbo V12 produces the same 730hp as the Ferrari but these two engines couldn’t be any more different. Where the Ferrari is very linear and controlled in its power delivery the Huayra feels savage, insane, and to be honest, a little bit terrifying. You hear the chatter of the wastegates, the turbos constantly whistle and wheeze as the engine makes its way up to its red line. It’s a seriously exciting machine the Huayra. The best way to feel how exciting the Huayra is probably to buy some illegal brown stuff or to think that it has the same power to weight ratio as a Veyron, except drive goes purely to the rear wheels – so Kim Kardashian better be awake if she does in fact buy a Huayra and ruin Pagani forever. Sure its gearbox might be clunky at low speeds but go a bit faster and it’s really well suited to the car. The steering does feel a little slow, especially if you've just hopped out of the Ferrari, but we don’t mind. I would have to say the Huayra is worth every bit of its million dollar plus price tag, it’s an incredible car.

If you couldn't already tell, we like the Huayra quite a lot, and so it is the winner of our Car Of The Year award, mainly because it has flaps all over it like an aeroplane wing which is really pretty awesome, and it makes a great noise, and looks very nice, and goes very fast. Yeah, definitely the Huayra.  

And here's a video of why I love it.....

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