April '04 TopGear magazine, for those that are interested. Nice two page spread on the RX-8, winner of "Coupe of the Year". (One photo has a kind of odd superimposed anime sexy girl in the driver's seat.)

Car of the year went to the Z.

 

Wait... the best coupe is the rx-8, but the best car is the Z... how does that work??? it's also funny that the best coupe goes to a car with 4 doors. not tryin to offend anyone, just pointing out the irony

 

I think they had to give the car of the year award to the Z due to raw statistics, lets face it, the Z is a solid conventional car that does its job in its class... it had to win an award.

The best coupe award does sound like an afterthought award, but they had to give the RX 1 award too because the car overall is simply an excellent, innovative, original machine, its a very rare event to see a car so original.

If you read the review or seen the video, Tim gave a glowing praise to the RX.

But no matter the award, I think they agree on 1 thing, both car deserved an award. The best car coulda gone either way, but they just had to make the coupe award just to honor the other one too.

 

Was this in this month's issue? Because I could have sworn I heard about this like 5 months ago...

 

there is a similiar thread posted by Anils in Jan, it wasn't top gear though, but from this site.

http://www.whatcar.com/News_SpecialR...&EL_ID=3052520

although i did remember reading about the z-being sports car of the year, but i couldn't find it by browsing/searching......

d

 

FYI: In Europe "coupe" is the standard term for a 4 door sedan.

 

i thought 4 doors were called "saloons" in europe? And from watching top gear videos, jeremy clarkson HATED the Z ("C+, 3 out of 10, could do better" he said) and loved the RX-8.

 

Yep..

 

i thought the top gear guy hated on the z during the show?

now its car of the year

 

I remember this...the magazine and the show are separate entities, and clarkson has no say in what the magazine publishes