We unveiled our RPM Awards in the November issue of Maxim, featuring the seven of the sweetest rides 2008 has to offer. The Honor Roll is the best of the rest…


HORSEPOWER TO THE PEOPLE AWARD
2009 Pontiac G8 GXP
Not only does the Pontiac G8 GXP get a 402-horsepower V-8 engine plucked from the ’Vette, but it does so at a bargain-basement price of less than 40 grand. Cue the Darwin Awards!

THIRSTIEST RIDE 2009
Honda Fit
The tiny, fuel-efficient Fit isn’t much bigger than a Smart car, but it boasts 10 cup­holders. Drink up!

WORST MODEL DEATH
2008 BMW Z4 M Coupe
This supercoupe was a Bavarian cobra, an iconoclastic beauty with 330 hp and more pure bite than anything this side of the Lotus Exige. Too bad nobody bought the damn thing. The Z4 is now spinning its wheels in its grave—though its spirit will live on in Larry’s Discount Used Car Lot.

MOST SEDUCTIVE SEATS
Maybach Landaulet
This backseat is more spacious than a Manhattan hotel room, with a decadent al fresco roof and sexily adjustable seats that will have the ladies gasping before you make a move. Raise the sliding privacy panel to keep your creepy chauffeur’s eyes on the road. If this car can’t get you laid, you really did waste $1.35 million.

“FLOOR IT!” AWARD
Island Pond, Vermont
The coast is clear: After 25 years residents dumped Ted Miller, the constable who made this rural Vermont intersection a notorious speed trap. Miller was a Tolstoy of tickets; his prolific and imaginative citations—including “Stop Not Sincere”—totaled more than $100,000 in 2007, 10 percent of the town’s revenue. This spring merchants fed up with Miller’s tactics helped a 28-year-old with no police experience oust him from office.

BEST PLACE TO SPY FUTURE GM CARS
The Set of Transformers 2
The Nürburgring is so 2007. To get the real scoop on future GM rides, look for online photos of the set of Transformers 2, a veritable celluloid showroom of shamelessly hawked GM vehicles. The question is: Are the Chevy Volt and Corvette Centennial Coupe worthy replacements for a plot line and character development?


BEST CAR TO BLOW YOUR EARDRUMS
2009 Jaguar XF
The Jaguar XF sounds as pretty as it looks, with an audiophile sound system by Bowers & Wilkins, the U.K. audio designer whose reference speakers became a staple of classic recording studios from Abbey Road to Deutsche Grammophon. The 14-speaker system features B&W’s nuanced sound and sparkling separation, with Kevlar speakers and aluminum tweeter domes. If you just overdosed on all that audiophile douchery, we advise you to lie down in a quiet room for a while.

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We unveiled our RPM Awards in the November issue of Maxim, featuring the seven of the sweetest rides 2008 has to offer. The Honor Roll is the best of the rest…


MOST AROUSING DESIGN 2009
Maserati GranTurismo
While most cars are designed using a bunch of straight lines and a few curves, the $135,000 GranTurismo is as voluptuous as a Brazilian bombshell: Not a straight line on the damn thing. Who says you can’t drive the girl of your dreams?

GUERRILLA MARKETING AWARD
BMW’s Rampenfest
Rampenfest feels like a Christopher Guest flick for a reason: This online doc about a small German town’s attempts to build a ginormous ramp and launch a BMW 1-Series across the Atlantic is as authentic as a $22 Rolex. The town might be fictitious, and the Facebook account for the film’s director might be fake, but the flick’s 10 million Web site views are real.

THE NAPOLEON AWARD
Bruce Weiner’s Microcar Museum
Tucked away in a nondescript building just outside Atlanta is a stash of Goggomobils, Mes­serschmitts, and other pocket-size postwar buggi­es that are small enough to make Smart cars look like Freightliners. The pet project of gazillionaire car fiend Bruce Weiner, the Microcar Museum is proof that you don’t have to be an eco-weenie to dig tiny rides.

MOST HEARTBREAKING MOVIE SCENE
Bruce Wayne Wrecks a Real Lamborghini
The box office wasn’t the only thing mega-blockbuster flick The Dark Night smashed. We teared up during that chase scene when Christian Bale’s Bruce Wayne crashes a non-CGI Lamborghini Murciélago LP640. The Italian company lent the film three of the $354,000 supercars; only two made it back. We haven’t been this choked up since Splash. Someone hand us a shammy cloth!

BEST REASON TO STAGE A HEIST
The Aston Martin One-77
Because the Bugatti Veyron is so 2006, Aston Martin’s gone and introduced the One-77, which is now in development and will be custom-built for 77 rich bastards. You’ll be hearing about its hand-built aluminum body, 7.0-liter V-12, and estimated $2.1 million price tag for years to come. But you read about it here first.

MOMMY-MOBILE WE WOULD ACTUALLY DRIVE
2009 Mazda6
It’s not too often that we lust after practical rides, but the 272 hp Mazda6 offers more BMW-like personality than any mass-produced Japanese sedan deserves. This $19,220 rice rocket will make driving enthusiasts proud, and it has plenty of trunk space for bulk purchases of mom jeans.

 

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We unveiled our RPM Awards in the November issue of Maxim, featuring the seven of the sweetest rides 2008 has to offer. The Honor Roll is the best of the rest…
























ACHIEVEMENT IN PARTY-ENABLING TECHNOLOGY
2009 Dodge Ram
Chrysler engineers must have an Old School DVD looping in their cubicles: They’ve converted the walls of the new Dodge Ram truck bed into drain-plug-equipped coolers that can hold 120 12-ounce cans and ice. Somebody’s even been watching porn: They’ve named the feature “RamBox.”

PEDESTRIAN PRESERVATION BMW
Night Vision
If poky bipeds in front of you don’t have the decency to scream, “I’m walkin’ here!” BMW’s Night Vision—an option offered on the 7 Series—helps keep road kill counts low by scanning ahead and warning you of any hapless humans in your way.

BEST CONCIERGE FOR NON-ARISTOCRATS
Ford Sirius Travel Link
If you’re buying a Ford, you’re probably not a Rockefeller, but you can play one with this add-on. The politely obedient navigation/info system delivers weather maps, sports scores, and movie times with nary a sniff; it even fills you in on nearby gas prices.

TREND THAT MUST END AWARD
Mechaphilia
Lots of men love cars, but 57-year-old Washington resident Edward Smith is the Gene Simmons of sheet metal, since he’s claimed to have made love to roughly 1,000 cars—including his current flame, a VW Beetle named Vanilla. Smith is profiled in a British documentary called Strangelove that gives new meaning to the phrase “auto erotica.”

THE STICK-TO-IT-IVENESS AWARD
2009 Dodge Viper ACR
The ACR pairs the Viper’s 600 hp V-10 with a crazy aero package. The result: 1,000 pounds of downforce at 150 mph. You’ll stick to the tarmac like your sneakers to the peep-show-booth floor.

FASTEST FAMILY CAR 2009
Cadillac CTS-V
Big, bad Caddies used to be reserved for Mob heavies and bookies, but the supercharged 550 hp CTS-V ($60K est.) attracts a whole different breed: the speed freak who wants horsepower under the hood and a kiddie seat in back.

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