It’s that time again — Road&Track’s Performance Car Of The Year test is underway. And do we have a lineup for you this year, dear readers!
We’re at a semi-undisclosed location with eight of the finest automobiles ever built. Here’s the lineup:
* Ferrari 488 GTB Turbo
* Bentley Continental GT3R
* Ford Shelby GT350R
* AMG GTS
* Cadillac ATS-V
* Porsche Cayman GT4
* Corvette Z06/Z07 package
* Dodge Viper ACR
Any one of these cars would be a thrill to drive on the fast two-lanes and three-mile racetrack we’ve reserved for this test, but when you drive all eight in succession it starts to feel more like a dream stolen from childhood and updated with twin turbochargers. After over three hundred miles of back roads today we’ve all picked our favorites. I can’t spoil the ending yet, because I don’t know it. But I’ve been smiling all day, and I’m thrilled to be here.
My companions on this trip include some pretty big names, like CAR‘s Chris Chilton, our own Sam Smith, and C/D‘s Tony Quiroga, but I’m tasked with writing up the test, and the conclusions, for you. Keep an eye out, is all I can say!
They should have included a BMW i8 and/or the highest performance Tesla Model S, something that runs on electrons.
Strange PCNA has not provided a North American GT3 RS press car (to anyone).
From what I hear, leaving the traction control *on* on certain VW diesels might make them eligible for PCOTY.
Based on your views on the switch to turbos by Ferrari, and DeadWeight’s repeated calling out of Cadillac’s lack of quality, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that you were there with eight interesting automobiles, *some of which* are the finest ever built.
A split hair, no doubt, but I am sure that there must be at least one dud in the pack, probably more.
But I am confident that to the extent that there might be duds in the mix, your writeup will clearly show that.
So I look forward to your writeup. It promises to be one of the most interesting automotive articles of the year.
When can we expect to be able to see it? And when and where online? (Some of us are either cheap bastards, or live on fixed income, and must not transgress the wishes of SWMBO.)
Is there a *real* problem with Cadillac’s quality, or did DW just not like the instrument panel in a rental ATS on one occasion?
Well, they have GMC engineering and design. Look at history, and tell me what has changed?
Just because someone is paranoid doesn’t mean no one is out to get them. And just because DeadWeight doesn’t like Cadillacs doesn’t mean that there is nothing wrong with them.
Poor design and engineering. Overpriced when compared to the competition. Other than that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?
that all just sounds like FUD.
Negative assertions made before the fact are a priori FUD, without value except as to their effect on the minds of those that are exposed to it.
But negative assertions made after the fact, which are borne out by actual experiences, are a posteriori FUD, where the Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt arise as the result of the actual historical events and not as a result of their merely having been made.
And GM has a track record that is a part of the historical record, and that is cause enough to fear for future things such as new cylinder deactivation, based on the fact that past cylinder deactivation schemes from GM have been consistent losers as far as consumer experience is concerned.
GM historically has offered supposed new technology breakthroughs that end up being nothing more than new ways for new technology to break.
The things I cited are part of the historical record of GM customers’ experiences with cylinder deactivation engines in the past. Ditto for the diesels they built on top of bottom ends designed to work with half the compression ratio.
They are “bad juju” that should never have seen the light of day, at least until they were long term tested for reliability, and that not by unsuspecting consumers.
yeah, but I was hoping we could stick to things that happened more recently than 30-40 years ago.
Yeah, not a big complaint of mine that’s for sure. Maybe it’s not the best overall look but I thought it was all made of nice enough stuff. I’m pretty sure dw had larger issues with the parent company.
Yes, tedward, DW may have bigger issues with the corporate entity. But do you have proof that they are something other than his complaints about their having treated consumers the way they have, re: engineering and design (as well as pricing)?
Or are you playing armchair psychologist and have produced an armchair clinical report on him that concludes that he has external “issues” that color his perception? I have not seen any such evidence…just evidence that he is aware of people having been burned by these kinds of GM “engineering”.
I choose to focus on the technologies themselves, but make no mistake, they didn’t happen in a vacuum, or as a result of a lone engineering team. They are part and parcel of the GM way of doing things. Rigid hieararchies and a corporate “yes man” culture, leading to bad news being suppressed, and good news being manufactured.
If you think thirty years of failed cylinder deactivation augurs immanent success for their new try with Corvette 6 of 8 cylinder deactivation, then you are a person with a lot more faith in GM than I am inclined to put in any secular organization, and certainly more than I feel GM warrants based on its track record.
In case you are unfamiliar with the history of this vis-a-vis GM, look up GMC and Northstar and perhaps reliability as a third keyword. I am fairly certain you will see a long trail of issues.
That instrument panel is uhhh…less than ideal. The powertrains are decent, although engine output could certainly be better in the ATS, CUE needs to be replaced, and the interior trim, while quite good, could stand a couple improvements. That said, Cadillac is most certainly playing in the same league as BMW/Mercedes/Audi at this point. Deadweight’s hipster-enthusiast ranting (cadillac needs better gauges, faster, better handling cars, with best in class front and rear seat legroom, etc, ad nauseam) points out some stuff that could be better but is fundamentally either wrong or misinformed, depending on how you want to view it. If nothing else, the chassis on the ats/cts is certainly on par with the best BMW has put out, and is good enough to forgive quite a few minor/less minor flaws.
Don’t think an amazing chassis and telepathic handling is worth forgiving a few flaws? Jack can, and has, gone on at length on Porche’s deadly sins. Let’s try some of BMW’s more egregious ones… building a car where the rear subframe occasionally rips apart the rear unibody of the car (E36/7/8, E46), cooling systems that completely blow up around 60k miles (e36, e46, e39), Pixels dropping out of an instrument cluster display because the designer taped! a ribbon cable to a circuit board (e39), cocked up alternator regen strategy killing batteries (F10), clog-prone EGR passage in cylinder head (e39, e38?).
The list goes on, if you don’t believe me, go look at the buyers guides for used BMW’s (I did, and I own one). The E46 has a wiki of common problems that would take 10+ pages to print, the E39 M5 has a small book written, including links to LENGTHY tutorials on how you’ll need to learn to use INPA for troubleshooting, etc. No luxury brand is perfect, and constantly harping on flaws ala DW only serves to obscure the fact that there are some genuinely good cars buried under all ofthat.
Amen, brother.
There are duds, true…
I will trust your rankings, Jack, whether you spell out exactly what is wrong with the losers or not.
I am confident that you will not allow favoritism to cause some duds to rise to a position above where they rightly belong. So as long as people remember to stay away from the bottom of the list, even if you don’t come right out and call any of them duds or clunkers, I’m sure we will be able to ascertain from your writeup who has made the grade and who has not.
And you won’t have to tear anyone of them a new one in order for us to understand, which in turn should mean that you wiill have found a way to both tell the truth and dodge the wrath of the manufacturers to the extent that you won’t be invited back. If R&T is smart, they will insist that manufacturers must be willing to submit to your honest judgments…it is the one of the best ways that they can distinguish themselves as being credible in a journalistic segment famous for sucking up.
Remember, as you are smart enough to already know this, faint praise will be damning, thereby leaving no honest assessment out, while at the same time giving the losers no room to say that you were unnecessarily harsh.
And if any of the readers are too unintelligent to be able to decode the reviews, well, then, fools and their money are soon parted anyway, so if they have more money than sense, it is not your responsibility to make sure that things remain that way.
I still think your Lamborghini review was perhaps the best car review I have ever read, and I’ve been an auto journalism reader for more than a couple of decades, and have consistently, if not uninterruptedly, read all of the major rags and all of the major writers.
I will be looking forward to the PCOTY article. Short of taking competitive driving lessons and arranging test drives of all the vehicles, it is the best way I will have of being able to talk intelligently about how these cars stack up.
They should broadcast ads for your writing on NPR, on the Click and Clack show, as public service announcements.
Don’t let it go to your head, but don’t let your doubts in the dark moments of your soul take you off your game, either.
As the younger set is prone to say these days, chive on!
SWEET SWEET UNOBTANIUM.
It’s great to observe your rapid Ascension up,the journo ladder! Building cred by the day. Publishing at a pace only the truly all-in can muster.
And finally, in the post photo above, you even LOOK the part now. Success becomes you.
It is the first time I have felt like I am along for the ride with a known scribe from roots to tree. And to trump A prior comment I have been reading this stuff for fifty years!
To all who are on board, stop and think of what Jack has been assigned here. Wrap up all the stats; glean out only the most relevant facts comments and opinions; include sufficient divergent tester arguments to keep it real; demonstrate objectivity and fairness; describe richly how each car drove and the emotions it evoked; and justify each final ranking with a vague miasma of statistics, emotions, sensations, public reactions and visceral thrill.
And do this without insulting other panel members, manufacturers, publishers, advertisers, readers and your own conscience.
When finished, go home and take the inevitable beating from cranks whose favorite brand did not emerge in the top spot. Then feel great about it all and start writing again immediately.
Show of hands-who else is ready to try?
I didn’t think so.
I consider myself to be fairly proficient with the English language as a tool to convey ideas and to persuade, but I wouldn’t even consider trying, unless of course, they offered me enough money and let me drive the cars. And perhaps threw in that I could keep the one I liked best, gratis.
But realistically, Jack’s career is definitely on a solid upswing, and I, as a happy follower of his exploits, and reader of his written output, am happy for him.
And one of those reasons is that in his early adulthood, like me, he pursued a number of unconventional paths, yet as he aged a bit he zeroed in on some really significant achievements and life successes. A poster boy (poster man, really, but that doesn’t scan well) for pursuing what makes you happy, and then turning it into having an impactful and otherwise successful life.
In a different way and to a different degree, I was one of those, too. And with a son who is 21 and bright, but who doesn’t like to pay a lot of money he will have to repay just to sit in class and be given assignments and deadlines, I can only hope that my son too will continue to follow his own lights, and that they will lead him to a true place of personal and life success. So to that extent, it makes me happy to see that something like that can be done, as Jack is a living example of it.
Keep it up, Jack. When you end up accepting an Oscar for best screenplay for some auto-racing movie, or similar, in about fifteen years or so, don’t forget your loyal following. We will all be expecting a ticket to the show, and likely will all be willing to rent a tux for the night to be able to sit there and tell others “I knew him when he was hooning hard and barely getting paid for it.” (Not that you will have changed that much, except for your likely newer pay grade.
I still think your Lamborghini article was one of the best pieces of first person narrative journalism I have ever read.
Cent’ Ann’, my friend. Couldn’t happen to a more deserving guy. I was going to say “nicer” guy, but I suspect that your niceness is more in proportion to the extent to which you feel others deserve it, rather than its being an invariant trait of yours. And I am fine with that.
So keep your seat belt fastened, and enjoy the ride. And keep those “stories from the frontline of fatherhood” going too, please. The adventures of Jack, the knave of hearts, well, that’s up to you, but I enjoy reading them also. So don’t let people talk you out of squashing them.
I would also like to see you start writing reviews of both modern and classic motorcycles, including enough info to help us incorrigibles decide if we could and should buy and ride one more before we ride off into the sunset. Special emphasis on British bikes, especially twins, of the sixties. Maybe an occasional BMW. Earles forks, anyone? Bits of strange nostalgia…perhaps a ride on one of T.E. Lawrence’s Broughs, a single cylinder 500cc Velocette, a junkyard classic Honda 305 Hawk and/or Dream. Plus, of course, all the iterations of such road weapons as the Kaw’s of a later time. Hope I’ve piqued your interest. They would make great reading, if done by you.
But most of all, just keep writing about whatever you feel needs to said. There are many of us who feel that that is what needs to be read, on a regular basis.
I meant “don’t let people talk you INTO squashing them…”
This site really does need an edit function similar to that on TTAC. At least let us catch and clean up the mistakes we don’t catch on the first re-read.
Good call. Let me see what I can come up with.
This should be good .
-Nate
Why not a CTS-V instead of the ATS-V?
For a guy living his dream job, you look far too serious, Jack.
Annnnnnd in other news, my job sucks…because I’m NOT doing THIS TODAY. Keep living the life we all wish we could JB.
Admit it. You use that pic for Tinder.
Finishing order?
1 Ford Shelby GT350R
2 Corvette Z06/Z07 package
3 Dodge Viper ACR
4 Porsche Cayman GT4
5 Ferrari 488 GTB Turbo
6 AMG GTS
7 Bentley Continental GT3R
8 Cadillac ATS-V
Interesting game, David. I’ll play too, keeping in mind that this is a performance-centered test, and that we know some of Jack’s biases and he’ll be writing the story.
1. 488
2. GT4
3. ACR
4. GT350R
5. Z07
6. AMG GT S
7. ATS-V
8. Conti GT3R
It’s not just Jack’s views of course. Or it would be ACR #1, no doubt.
As a 991 GT3 owner, I would have liked to have seen the defending champion return, at least in the form of the GT3 RS.
As an Atlantan who is reasonably plugged into PCNA, which is local, I am pretty sure they don’t have a press car (yet). That said, many cars have been delivered already. I have seen several on the road here already.
I will bet the Ferrari doesn’t get #1, and the GT350-R does better than #4. The others, quién sabe?
I’m going to guess the GT350R wins for level of speed & technology at a (relatively) low price point, and more analogue feel than the 488. The 488 is going to be a little more polished than the Z06/Z07, but everyone will have to acknowledge the accomplishment of that Corvette.
Everyone will love the GT4, but the crap steering feel and relative lack of power & pace will put it in the lower half of the pack. The Conti is a rhinoceros - heavy and fast, but not lovable.
1) GT350R
2) 488
3) Z06/Z07
4) Viper ACR
5) GT4
6) ATS-V
7) AMG GTS
8) Conti GT3
You obviously have not driven a Cayman GT4.
The steering feel is excellent, indistinguishable from a 997 GT3, and far superior to a 991 GT3.
I’ll second David Walton’s list, except I bet the ACR goes #2 ahead of the Vette, and perhaps the Ferrari will jump up one more slot, ahead of the Porsche.
Why isn’t there a Fan Duel fantasy league for PCOTY?
Mick Foley reviews cars?
The first thought I had when I saw the top picture in this post wasn’t “Wow, a GT4,” rather I thought “I wonder how much Porsche charges for yellow seat belts and matching stitching in the headrests.”
Gaudy - in my eyes it would only look proper on a riced-out Civic driven by a high-schooler.
For the first time since I let my C&D subscription lapse 15 years ago, I signed up for two years of a dead tree car magazine. That magazine is Road & Track. And Jack, you are the main (only?) reason for that. Feel free to use that tidbit in your next salary negotiation. Hope it starts in time to catch this article, although I will be unreasonably upset if the GT-350R does not win, place, or at least show.
Rob
Goes double for me: Jack is the only reason I subscribe to R&T.
Jack I’m a long time follower and love the fact that you’re writing for R&T, plus it’s awesome that you look like the lead singer of Symphony X
Not to put too fine a point on it but what is the basis for your certainty that DW has other issues with GM?
As the saying goes, inquiring minds want to know…
posting repetetive walls-of-text screeds about them in comments of articles which have nothing at all to do with GM.
The rankings will be the composite of a committee of testers’ opinions. But I suspect that Jack will be able to identify and articulate enough salient points about the alleged vs. actual pros and cons to be able to sway the results fairly strongly in the direction he would go.
And failing that, I can see him embedding his choice rankings into the article in some other way.
I cannot see anything that Jack might openly scorn getting by the other evaluators unnoticed. So the Bentley might get jumped up from the bottom a bit more than Jack would do, but I doubt that anything he ranks in the bottom quarter will rise overall to anything higher than fourth, for example.
Or that a car he thinks is vastly underrated and much more capable at full track speeds would fall to the lower half of the list just because it doesn’t really show its honking/hooning chops until really, I mean REALLY pushed to the limit.
See, for example, his comments in his Lambo article about what most writers think about its suspension and handling, vs. what he perceives it to be. Once he would point something out that was that true, none of the others are likely to go along with just a knee-jerk hands-waving pass into the upper echelons.
I think Jack will play nice with the other evaluators, but I also think that he will be able to exert a fair amount of “playground leadership and command”, enough to keep the wretchedness from going unnoticed, and enough to ensure that the sublime strong points do not go unnoticed simply because they only appear at the edge.
I am expecting that this will turn out to be another classic car review, like the Lambo one is/was, only times eight.
And I expect the background mental soundtrack to all that hooning will be
“I was running down the road, trying to loosen my load, seven women on my mind.
Two that tried to own me, two that tried to stone me,…”
Only instead of seven women, it will be eight cars. And the deck will get a proper, even if slightly unpredictable sorting. No “WTF” moments in the review I will wager…just a good solid 8-way comparison.
And I’m sure that Jack will not be overwhelmed by 8 ways for the vehicles, times a half dozen writers.
But for the mathematically inclined, there are 8! == eight factorial ways of doing an eight way ranking.
In other words, 8x7x6x5x4x3x2 = 40,320 different lists that are possible.
And the fairest way to rank near misses would be to take the Hamming distance of the actual from the guessed. For example, if the actual number was chosen by you to be number five you take the difference, and square it. Add all those squared numbers together and take the square root of the result.
YEOW that was fun getting pointy-headed for a minute after being up most of the night, mostly researching an MLM that has been cleverly constructed to reward a few players big time, while the grunts and drones tend to the beehive. Seems my son got an invite to one of their seminars, so I had to prep to be able to quote facts, not just generalities. And that was a boring but necessary duty of fatherhood.
But banging out the number of possible lists and a way to compute whose list was closes was a lot more gratifying.
And if you don’t like that much math, just don’t read the analysis. But be prepared to possibly have me decide to score everyone’s list using the above methodology.
My list is the David Walton list but with the two mods I suggested I expected to see.
@Dan S That was an excellent detailing of the causes for the declining reputation for reliability which plagues modern BMW’s. I had known that quality has gone down hill, but hadn’t taken the time to get that detailed a catalog.
If I were looking for a used BMW (which I am not) I would surely have that list in mind as I shopped.
But in the end, I feel obliged to point out that just because BMW quality has wandered into “sucks” territory, that does not make Cadillac’s faults any less faulty. Perhaps if my choices were limited to those two brands, it might be more significant, but I am not, and few people do feel that they must drive only one or the other.
Perhaps DW’s responses (diatribes, if you prefer) are based more in history than in current levels of quality, but the fact remains that even today, the marque bears the burden of too many flawed decisions in both the design and the engineering domains.
At the very least, DW’s harping on what Cadillac has become clearly illustrates, for both the cognoscenti and the unsuspecting sheep, that these are not the Cadillac’s of your father’s generation.
Totally independent of book values, if I were offered my choice of a modern Cadillac or one from the heyday of clean simple elegance, I would prefer the older one ten times out of ten. OK, maybe nine times out of ten…I might like the muscle version new Cadillac with headspinning, and necksnapping, acceleration.
But overall, the history of the marque resembles a trek down the side of a hill. Whether the next direction will be continued decline, a leveling off, or a gradual climb back towards former glory, remains to be seen.
But at present, I would gladly pass over both modern BMW’s and modern Cadillacs. For what, I’m not sure, as I haven’t really had a need to research the subject that closely, but I am certain of one thing, and that is that neither of those marques lives up to the reputation they still aspire to.
In fact, to call them aspirational vehicles is a wicked jest, as they are more aspirational in their pretensions, than they are aspirational status symbols for their owners.
When I see someone driving either of those two these days, my first thought is that there goes someone with more money than sense.
And as an afterthought, if I were putting that kind of money into a new vehicle, I would probably go for a fully tricked out Ford pickup, with all the performance and luxury of either of those two, or at least enough to put it in the same ballpark. I think I may be onto one reason why pickup sales are climbing…it is the surest and best way to get an impressive luxury high performance ride in a new vehicle.
Chrysler/FCA and Chevy-GM/GMC fanboys are welcome to chime in with their alternatives, but for me, it would be something along the lines of a King Ranch Ford pickup, IF I wanted to send the message that “I had arrived”, the war cry of aspirational buyers everywhere. But even if the pickup strategy couldn’t or wouldn’t work for me for some reason, I still wouldn’t be hanging around Cadillac or BMW showrooms kicking tires.
It would be more likely that I would be trying to get advance impressions of what Lincoln might be up to at the rollout of new designs based on the D6 frame, which I learned here is due in the 2018 MY. I hope Lincoln blows the doors off the competition with their new designs, though it is still too early to tell (at least for me) whether or not the potential will be met. But the possibilities are intriguing.
Perhaps a wicked powerful engine derived from the new flatplane V8, on the D6 platform with RWD and AWD options, in a well-styled design that doesn’t look like it is a badge engineered rollout from the the virtual factory in my mind that seems to produce all the major upscale options from the Japanese manufacturers, as well as from several of the Germans. Just enough departure from that generic windtunnel look to give it a look of distinction, similar to the old Continental or the Panther-based models of the past, but with an updated frame and drivetrain. Something that could create as much excitement in the luxury vehicle segment as the new Mustang is creating these days in that market segment.
Done right, it would be THE halo car if its era, and would severely damage the sales of both BMW and Cadillac.
Like I said, other fanboys are free to craft their own vision, but that would be mine, rather than any incremental evolution of either of those other two.
A PS - since I am a bit long in the tooth to be a boy of any kind, I am coining a new word, for which I will take credit, but offer up for use by others under an open source license (just for S&G)…
For anyone who is at or is approaching old geezer status, they would not be called fanboys, but rather…(wait for it)….
“Fangeezers”.
Of which I am chief.
Ten points extra credit for picking up on that last variant on a classic phrase, namely “of which I am chief”.
I hereby declare myself Charter Member #001 of the “fangeezers”, and declare that I am unabashedly a Ford fangeezer.
They may have happened thirty or forty years ago, but they are happening still.
I haven’t kept a dossier on the recent ones, but I am hoping someone with more specific product knowledge on the more recent reincarnations will jump in to flesh out that list.
But there is also that messy bit about GM and ignition switches.
And it is a negative history that goes back decades that makes me fearful of putting my eggs in one of their newer baskets.
Good luck to you, if you do. But except for some innovation in the hybrid/electric area, I haven’t seen any earth-shattering news out of GM. That is, unless you are excited by the possibility of driving a high performance Corvette that will allow you to economize by the use of a new and improved cylinder deactivation scheme, for example.
And then there are all those things that are neither contemporary or thirty or more years old.
Wasn’t the nikasil fiasco only about fifteen years ago? Admittedly not the present, but it does show that fiasco engineering didn’t cease to exist at GM thirty years ago.
Examples?
who are you talking to?
You, in response to your comment about DW posting repetitive screeds about GM in articles not related to it.
I am neither agreeing or disagreeing with the repetitive screed part, but I don’t recall a plethora of occurences in threads totally unrelated to GM, unless perhaps the thread was about relative car quality or some such, in which case the quality of GM cars would be related.
But I have been reading a fair percentage of TTAC articles for about six months now, and haven’t seen any DW anti-GMC screeds in a thread about gender equality clauses in the new UAW-FCA contract, or an article about VAG diesel testing, or anything else like that, for which no relevant relationship could be deduced.
I just thought that if you that that sort of thing was pervasive with DW, you could give me two or three examples of threads with what you call his anti-GM screeds, where his post was totally unrelated to either the article or an earlier comment.
If so, I will be educated by your examples. If not, I question your assertion that he posts his anti-GMC viewpoint in irrelevant threads.
And whether either of us agree or not, if that is his position in threads that do relate to either GM or quality, that is his right, and if we don’t agree, the solution is not to try to silence him, but rather to rebut his arguments. Which I think might be difficult to do, based on the concrete assertions I recall him making about GM quality. Not just generic rants, but specific examples he gives of GM fails, just as I have when mentioning failed cylinder deactivation schemes (Northstar), nikasil surface coatings, etc.
So either you should be able to furnish two or three links to his “screeds” in totally unrelated threads, or you are just offended by the fact that he takes Cadillac and GM to task whenever the subject comes up. But they are not the same thing, which is why I am asking for examples of his doing so in what you consider unrelated threads, so I can see for myself.
Thanks in advance…
The winner should get a prize…UKWIS?!
1) Corvette Z06/Z07 package
2) Dodge Viper ACR
3)Ferrari 488 GTB Turbo
4)Porsche Cayman GT4
5)Ford Shelby GT350R
6)AMG GTS
7)Cadillac ATS-V
8)Bentley Continental GT3R <—should be last just because of its heffer fat 4,900lb ass
Great bit about the tire fix. A ‘how many supercars does it take to change a tire’ joke comes to mind.
Back in the day it was fairly common to knock tires off the rims , a simple way to re seat the bead was to splash some gasoline into the deflated tire then toss in a lit match ~ a big -WHOOMP- ! and you were back in business…..
I bet there’s videos on you tube .
-Nate
My “final answer” is:
1) Shelby Ford
2) Ferrari
3) Corvette
4) Viper
5) Porsche
6) AMG-MB
7) Cadillac
8) Bentley, the fatboy bringing up the rear.
But the odds against a perfectly ordered list seem overwhelming.
And trying to calculate the Hamming distance between an entry and the correct list seems even more overwhelming, at least if applied to all the entries.
So I find myself hoping that someone … anyone … hits the nail on the head, never mind the odds.
But if they do, I want to see their list of picks for next week’s NFL games.