Best and Worst Cars / Trucks of 2023 | Trigger Warning
D oh my God look at how many people are here unbelievable that is a good looking crowd sir good looking crowd thanks everybody oh my God everybody looks so great the audience is 99% women too unbelievable our our demos are just incredible oh my God okay thank you
Thank you very much thank you again for coming out to one of the most prestigious Awards award events of the Season Jack no expense was spared on tonight’s festivities we have people from all around the world here with us some of the biggest names in the industry Like Larry and Phillip uh
They’re here to celebrate some of these awards that we have here today and then also big sh shout out to Billy who uh essentially went to different countries to mine the piano black plastic that is on all these trophies so yeah he went above and beyond and this is the Savage geese
2023 cars of the Year award or awards show and you need to thank someone Mark we wouldn’t be here without a special lady in your life yeah that’s right I really wanted to take this time thank you thank you but uh thanks very much she made me egos
Jack you wouldn’t believe the egos this woman made oh it’s incredible she gave you the drive to be here now let’s get into the awards starting with best affordable sports car of 2023 and this goes to the hyund Elantra and we forgot to tape this award so you an
Eagle ey viewer you already know but the reason why we are giving it to the hyund alantra N specifically or if you’re in the United States Hyundai alantra n um is that it does does everything well it is a good track car it is a joy to drive
It’s a car with a long warranty you could use it as your only car very easily it’s a good highway vehicle and it’s affordable it’s somewhere in the mid-30s which is unbelievable to say it’s way cheaper than a Civic Type R a gr Corolla a Golf R and it’s not much
Worse than a Civic Type R and it gives you basically the same amount of fun as that vehicle it is a very compelling car it’s it’s an odd one it’s one of the few cars other than the Miata that you would say hey you know what I don’t have an
Asset of money to have fun in a car and it’s a car that you can get in and instantly be excited to drive like you drive it and you feel a sense of huge amount of joy and fun it puts a smile on your face and you can’t say that about
Some of the other fun cars or supposedly fun cars that we’ve driven over the past year uh and the price tag is what you see and you can maybe even get it for lot you’re not yes the Hyundai dealerships are not the greatest but you’re not going to walk into it with a
Surprise $10,000 markup uh like the Civic Type R and the gr coroll and that that says a lot and that’s why also it’s just a great car it really is amazing so hats off to them for spending the time to make it right to make it dynamically
Good and all the other things that go into Fun cars it’s proof that Hyundai can build a very enjoyable car when they sweat the details other honorable mentions the Integra Type S are to does everything great it is a lot more money though yeah and obviously you have the
Miat on the g86 but those are cars we’ve talked about in previous years right for sure and they’re not Cars you could really use as your only vehicle either there are definite compromises in day-to-day usability let’s let’s talk about the next award Mark yeah let’s go
Into uh this guy here uh best truck there’s a lot of trucks and depending on who you are you’re probably going to argue this but there’s a reason why this one the Ford F-150 Jack and here’s the thing when you talk about some of the bestselling products in the world world
Or the most popular music or the most popular movies what you will see often times those that sell the best are not the best cars or products in the case of F-150 a lot of it is because Ford has put so much money into it there’s so
Many different trim level options for so many different types of people from work trucks all the way up to like the raptor r with a you know Supercharged V8 that does crazy things and it’s a a real truck right it’s not a marketing gimmick and that’s why it’s so much the support
Network when you sell a million a year that means supply chain is there aftermarket support’s there a normal shop can work on it because they’re so plentiful that this is it’s just an amazing truck for what it is it’s incredibly well thought out absolutely uh two other honorable mentions are the
Midsize new trucks this year the Colorado it’s dramatically dramatically better than the old Colorado it is a good truck and the new Tacoma is also a very compelling offering in this segment is a much more competent vehicle 360 than the Tacoma it replaces I think some
Of it it goes back to the F150 right it pushed the boundaries of trying to do trucks different while still maintaining what the truck was they weren’t trying to you know like I I don’t want to get into this too deeply but they they knew what the truck had to be while improving
The engineering they made it almost an SUV when it comes to just day-to-day usability all right Mark the next award let’s get into it it is going to be best compact car 2023 oh boy there aren’t many compact cars left so it wins by default it is the Toyota Prius the
Reason we gave it to the new Prius is that it does everything great it’s a car you can totally put maximum effort into despite you know there’s a lot of other brands abandoning the segment it’s affordable it’s usable it looks good and compared to the old Prius It actually
Drives quite well is it a perfect car no but is a vehicle you can tell they put a lot of time and effort into and they cared yeah and I think you’ll see your seeing that now with Toyota with some of their other cars like the Camry that’s
Coming out and the crown like they they realize to keep these segments alive you have to do more than just like regular updates and these cars are perfect examples of they should last they get great fuel economy they’re usable the technology Works mostly works and one of
The huge benefits is again the the resale value of these things they don’t completely lose their ass in depreciation which makes them far less dis than some of the other like luxury prodcts or like a leaf for example if you a leaf nail right so uh the other
Runners up were of course the Civic the Civic was last year’s winner um and this is again about what we what we experienced this year yes bad time to mention this but when it comes to the qualifications for these Awards it had to be a car we drove this year had to be
A car that you alsoo can buy new so there are no old cars like the NSX or some of the other older vehicles who drove this year so just something to note in the background of course the reason why there aren’t more categories is Mark blue all over budget on Awards
To himself yeah I finally decided that I deserved it when you’re on Zoom calls now there’s going to be that Award for best zoom call behind you I I’m everything this year I’ve won an award for pretty much everything the best lover uh best Communicator uh best artist uh best negotiator best
Businessman incredible all right Mark let’s move on to the next award which is the sener award and that is for most boring least inspired brand that goes to Volkswagen and yes before you say anything I I do know that they make the GTI and GF R and both are great cars but
Their regular vehicles are now all old and relatively uninspired minus say the Tiguan which is actually pretty okay the atlas is ancient the Jetta is ancient they killed the pat their EV vehicles that are here are horrible it’s a shame cuz that brand for a long time was very very good it’s uh
Kind of what we looked at with Toyota’s problem right when you turn into such a commodity brand and you’re so big you have so much money there’s so much overhead so much complacency I think you create a culture of you have too many people too many old ways of doing things
They’re just like basically like that’s good enough everything that they do feels like it’s just good enough and I know in 2024 there’s going to be some major changes to the interior lay out of a lot of their cars too to kind of fix some of these problems um but
Everybody’s gotten better and all you do is just go on their website and look at their configurator it’s an easy way to fall asleep and to me you know like I want to see progression I want to see like effort and there’s just not a lot
There at least this year we didn’t see a lot of it yeah you compare that to Honda’s new products this year or hondai your Kia’s VW left some something on the table for sure um next car Mark let’s let’s do it on your end all right we got
This bad boy right here my my flap Jacks the flapjack Award for best SUV of 2023 uh this is a very hard one the Honda Pilot um I think if you watched our content on the Honda Pilot uh you’ll understand uh why I feel the way that I
Do but Jack can you explain that for us it is the perfect middle ground in the space and it doesn’t feel like a penalty box to drive it may not be as big as a grand Highlander but it has near minivan levels of usability it may not get the
Fuel efficiency of a grand Highlander but it isn’t a total like Penalty Box to drive around are good Dynamics there’s good usability they have good residuals and they are affordable vehicles to buy it is a complete package while it doesn’t do necessarily anything brilliantly does everything pretty well
Yeah and you could argue all these vehicles in the space are basically NPC right they’re just uh you’re you’re driving them in in sleep mode half the time like you’re you’re not fully aware and I think and I said this I say this a lot about family vehicles and that’s
What this is about like the SUV Market is replaced sedan Vans and minivans so most of the people that are buying this it has to do everything it has to be reliable it has to have like the the you’re not going to lose your ass owning
It and after all of the the the shiny wears off how is it to use it as a real car 6 months from now 2 years from now and it’s one of the least frustrating vehicles that you could possibly get into use in terms of Technology physicality storage uh and it
Blends to your point it BLS everything together and that’s why it’s here this year and unlike something like the grand Highlander or the kellia ride it isn’t a miserable car to drive right you haven’t Zapped all the joy to driving with the TVD rear diff it gets an out of corner
As well even naturally aspirated V6 which has some character to it it is sort of that complete car are there SUVs better at certain categories yes but it is what we picked honorable mentions for other SUVs the premium class BMW X5 great SUV and of course the Honda CRV
The hybrid variant does everything well it feels like a price category above it’s very refined and it is a probably our favorite compact SUV and the cx90 could get slotted in there for what they tried to achieve like they they really tried it’s like the opposite of like the
VW Award right Mazda’s trying so hard to to to go to this new Direction uh and this that will probably be there it’s just not there yet they got more work to do but again you want to see effort and that’s that’s the thing you want to see that they’re trying to separate
Themselves and they want to be in this space that is absolutely flooded with overpriced Vehicles so the Honda did a great job uh being a real car that you can buy today speaking of expensive Vehicles this is the performance car of the year for 2023 this is for cars north
Of $100,000 your Corvette no yeah my Z06 no it is the Porsche GT3 RS um simply put it is one of the most impressive vehicles I’ve ever driven regardless of year it gives you that experience albeit it’s not the same as a cup car but it
Gives you some of that Cup car race car experience and a vehicle that you don’t need race engineers and a trailer and all the other inconveniences and cost associated with a car that is this mechanically proficient it is encapsulated everything I love about track driving it gives me new
Experiences that I haven’t had before crazy high down four street cars and all of the electromechanical systems are nearly per perfect and all you have to do is speak to any other engineer from any other brand and they will tell you what is the best driving car GT3 they
Have really figured out these vehicles and it is a really special car if you have the money and you’re willing to pay the asinine markups it is the experience you won’t forget if you ever get to drive it eight or nine times on a racetrack removing the price out of it
Just for a minute and obviously that’s the joke of this and there’s going to be a joke and some like low blow you can take with every car uh but there’s honestly nothing to joke around about with the GT3 RS it is dead serious the people that worked on this it’s a
Culmination of careers worth of work that went into aerodynamics bodyw work suspension tuning transmission tuning Engine Tuning it is the Pinnacle of what you can achieve in this era of sports car without just adding excessive amounts of horsepower to it and the EV marketing crap where you’re just like oh
Look how fast it can go in a straight line for just this period of time this car leaves you walking away with this is why people love cars this is the best that you can do with a street car that is a performance car on top of it that you
Can drive around places and then go to the track it it it’s the vehicle that you buy that you look back on and you’re like 30 years from now you know it’s going to be worth money the people that around you that want to know what cars
Like a family heirloom is that it is it’s just it’s a unbelievably special car when Porsche does things to this this level um man I I I have the nothing to say that you could possibly say negative about it all right there are some other vehicles I want to give shout
Outs to Lambo stto or the Lamborghini stto probably the most joyful cars I’ve ever driven V10 and it was built around they knew they couldn’t build a car more mechanically proficient than a GT3 so they built a car in their eyes it’s more fun yeah and it’s such a joyful
Experience I know not a lot of people care about that car but I highly suggest you watch that video I think that that was my favorite video that I did year there’s a lot of videos we did but that was one of my favorites because there there’s something special if you wanted
To sell somebody on why people love the car experience remove the lambo badge remove the color remove everything about brand uh what your your brand prejudices go watch that video and that’s exactly why people love cars that that’s all you have to say that’s very few cars that
Just make you like I get it I get it if you don’t like driving that car flat out there’s something wrong with you or you just don’t like cars the other two Vehicles I’m going to quickly bring up eay the Corvette eay gives you a lot of the experience of hyp expensive Vehicles
Like the 911 Turbo W and the McLaren arura for a much more affordable price point and under $100,000 but it is still too much money is the Mustang Darkhorse for $70,000 or more it is just an asinine amount of money for a non Shelby Mustang but if you can strip that away
For a moment it is a very very good driving car great Dynamics good manual gearbox great engine and it was our pick in its class when we did our comparison test yeah the asterisk is the price on that you know again everything’s too expensive I’m not going to lie like
Great car too much money makes it largely irrelevant at this point uh but the Corvette back to that you know look at what they’ve been able to do with that brand lineup and they continue to expand it out you may not be into the whole like hybridized V8 thing but what
They’re doing is the same thing that the 911 brand is doing it’s an affordable Porsche 9911 yeah that you could buy these cars you can go and buy them and not like have to deal with some of the that Porsche is dealing with with price inflation to this to the extreme
So Corvette is uh specially doing doing great things for like the Enthusiast Community yep all right Mark let’s get into our next award for worst vehicle of the year yeah this one you know I had to do this one kept me up at night I’ll
Tell you that and the all the votes came in there were three they’re all you all me the Toyota bz 4X um I think let’s start this off by just saying all you have to do is say the name a couple times you realize why beyond 04x beyond zero this car is soon
And I’m sure everybody in North America Toyota which had nothing to do with this other than maybe like validation testing and all that like nobody I can’t imagine anybody a black spot oh man this is I can’t believe we did this this is one that should have been flushed down the
Toilet right as soon as they started having problems with it it it I think it purely exists for the regulation the regulatory process just to say they had an EV not because anybody was really passionate about it they this car out it’s a car that’s going to be
Forgotten is like the Mitsubishi IM you know like this is an example of what’s wrong with a first generation product and the Silver Lining is they set the bar so low with this car than anything they do now after this people are going to be like oh man look how great they
Did it’s like you’re going to be stumbling over yourself because this is such a turd on the uh flip side them Mark let’s let’s let’s look past some negativity and let’s let’s give out our most prestigious award this is for Car of the Year any category every category
And uh Mark let’s let’s tell the men and women out there what uh what they are what we’re awarding yeah this is pure 4 karat gold and uh Ultra Premium from Bulgaria yeah I let’s see where is it from yeah Bobby anyway this is pure Automotive grade wood veneer and uh we
Didn’t spare any expense I expect this brand to be putting it in their Lobby next to their CEO’s desk at all times I hope so everybody takes these trophies real seriously well what about all the brands that come into the auto shows with the I expect these Awards reps if
You’re watching we’re going to ship these to you yeah please please put this on your pallet jack and your trop Ted Kinski my I think the bad the thing peeled off when I pulled the tape off of course it’s a por right B shock Jack no it is
Not it is it goes to or no and it doesn’t go to my Z6 either it goes to the Lucid air Sapphire while I will be the first one to tell you this is an ultra expensive Eevee that is largely irrelevant to the mass majority of
People cuz not making a lot it’s very expensive the reason this car wins carv year is what it represents as a milestone for the automotive world it is proof to you and I that you can get into an EV you know over 4,000 lb sedan and
Still instill driving joy in a way that no other OEM has figured out this car is my favorite Ford or vehicle I have ever driven it is a car that can be a great highway vehicle it’s a car you can be an absolute baboon in and to close out this
Video you’ll see me terrorizing poor Mark I you can do entry speed 100 mph power slides all day long and chain them together easily and if you’re the one person in the world who wants to track one around our track in 180° weather it was less than 2 seconds lap slower than
A GT3 and a c86 on cup two RS this is a remarkable piece of engineering yeah and I I you know the brand regardless of what you think about how they are running and who’s running and all that I think the background what why I spent so
Much time doing the video on this car was like an hour and a half is the people that are were working on this car they didn’t care about the back background noise like they just wanted to make a really good car they wanted to take everything that they loved about
Cars and put it into an electric sedan uh which meant it wasn’t just about look how fast I can go in a straight line and to be fair this thing is insane in a straight line like it’s it’s no joke but it was that was just one piece of it you
Can make an electric car fast we know that but it was about what you do here the choosing the right electric power steering setup how it transmits things that are going on through the car it’s about the bre breing system there’s no brake by wire here which proves you
Don’t need brake by wire in an electric car to make the braking system and the stability control system work uh there’s so many different layers of it from the the subtleties and aerodynamics to the body structure and how they package it together and the use of the the electric
Motor design is incredible it shows the best of what you could do today absolutely the best of what you can do today in this realm and it gives you the hope for the future and that’s what this award is like you know you wipe your ass
With the words but it’s it’s a sign of what you can do today and the hope for what you can do tomorrow as that technology impr it doesn’t have to be Doom and Gloom this is proof that if you have in the case of David and John and
Ester and all the people at Luca that we’ve worked with it’s proof that if you get passionate Engineers who care who don’t listen to all the background noise and they’re very very bright and they care about transmitting some level of Joy To You versus just some box that
Goes quickly in line these names were on this like I felt unlike a lot of the brands were you know and and this is not disparaging other people like the honesty of big huge corporate machines in brands that are Legacy you have 25 different layers of management they’re
Too big they’re too old what level engineer you are blah blah blah yeah and you wind up just like I you know you go to so many meetings there’s only so many fights you can go where you lose where you start to check out of your job
You’re there to get your job done you do it to a credible amount and then you’re on to the next project this brand is different because they’re doing something different and you know the survivability is also there but their names are baked into they wanted to do a good job they
Felt a part of it and you don’t get that with a lot of the old Brands and it’s a blessing or a curse for Lucid we don’t know where they’re going to be I you know I like what they’re trying to do here with a pure engineering message
That may not be enough but it’s proof that they did it and this car is representative of it’s It’s a blueprint of how to move forward I hope and that is one of the reasons why we’re giving them this award is that this technology and this focus on the finer details
Filter down into more affordable vehicles that enthusiasts can buy and people will love cars so when they get in their EV in 5 10 years they don’t hate themselves for driving some Appliance yeah with that I want to thank all of our patreons all of our viewers
For making all of this possible 2023 was our biggest year when it came to projects and I also have to thank all of our Automotive reps people like Trevor from GM our our Porsche friends Kyle Luke Calvin Shelby Frank all of these people that we work with Lynn from Honda
Andrew from Acura make Sam from Ford make all of this possible they really do spend a lot of effort in helping us tell these technical stories Mark and I always talk about this the thing that I want to to focus on as well a lot of this stuff like GT3 rs’s and sapphires
On itanium to regular people I’m trying to we’re trying to answer the how’s and wise between all the stuff and let some of you live vicariously through our experiences and at the end of the day these are just cars so we’re trying not to take this too seriously either yeah
And I mean that’s part of it too the the brands and the people that we work with a lot of the Reps and we could go on and on with the list what we really love is that you know you can’t take this stuff too seriously right like this is it it
Is a job but it is a passion and we get everybody gets so self-absorbed and self-obsessed and it gets nauseating how serious things get I hope that some of our work gives that spark to be like hey people actually appreciate this you want to go be an engineer yeah and the people
That are watching this appreciate that amount of information and a lot of the Reps they know that people appreciate that more than just the surface level stuff that is constantly like regurgitated not everybody cares about marketing and I know that our audience doesn’t and we we we really love the the
Technology and all the stuff that we’ve learned so big thanks to everybody including Autobon Country Club uh Ron Mike Craig Kyle Autobon Country Club is why we can do a lot of these big videos a lot of these big tests without them this wouldn’t be possible for us at
Least in the degree that we’re able to do this so if you love driving and you want to learn how to drive become a member do track days there they are our biggest supporter in the Illinois area one of our biggest supporters in the US so huge thanks to them with that though
Um here’s a clip of me terrorizing poor Mark and El Lucid Sapphire around our Racetrack and uh Merry Christmas to your families happy holidays and of course uh Happy New Year’s best wishes just from us to all your loved ones thank you thank you for everybody for celebrating
Me Steve bomber ain’t got on me god dude so everything’s off and honestly what does that mean that is how you should be driving this car oh my God holy oh yeah oh my God on the ground oh my god oh yeah don’t do it here don’t do it here oh oh
Oh oh my God bro
We hand out premium trophies in the most exclusive awards event of the season. We showcase the best cars, trucks, and SUVs we drove in 2023, along with honorable mentions. We also hand out our worst cars and brands of the year. Strap yourself in for a huge budget, live audience extravaganza. no matter what brand you love, from Ford, Chevy, Mazda, Porsche, Honda, or Toyota, we should have something for you.
#cars #business #best
Index:
00:00 Intro and Live Audience
1:39 Best Affordable Sports Car
3:40 Best Truck
5:28 Best Compact Car
7:26 Snoozer Award
8:53 Best SUV
11:43 Best Performance Car
14:05 Best Performance Cars Runners Up
16:10 Worst Car of the Year
17:37 Best Car of the Year
