Motor Trend competition is stacked

First, let me give my heartfelt congratulations to the Chevy Silverado, this year’s Motor Trend (MT) Truck of the Year (TOTY). From all indications, it is a fantastic vehicle, and deserving of those coveted golden calipers.

I have but one problem with the Silverado being crowned champ. For those of you that haven’t seen the competition, here’s the rundown. This year’s contest consisted of five contestants, the Chevy Silverado, the Chevy Avalanche, the Cadillac Escalade EXT, the GMC Sierra, and the Ford Explorer Sport Trac. The Avalanche, Escalade, Silverado and Sierra are all based on the new GMT900 platform. The Sport Trac was the only vehicle in the competition not made by GM.

MT is quick to point out (on the first page of the article, nonetheless) that “the truck world moves a bit slower than the rest of the auto industry...the life cycle of a truck is about double that of a car.” MT also claims that they’re judging each truck against their various criteria, and not against each other.

Yeah, right. I’m betting that if the new Nissan Titan or new Toyota Tundra had been in the mix, the results might have been a bit closer than this year’s all-out blow-out.

What bothers me the most about this year’s TOTY competition is that this was essentially an inter-divisional competition, not the inter-company brawl it should be. If I were GM, I would be more than a tad miffed that nobody else showed up to the party. After all, what’s the point in winning an award when you’re playing against yourself? (And, consequentially, what’s the value in the award if you win against yourself?) It’s not uncommon for MT to compare six trucks in a head-to-head competition between the full-fledged TOTY shin-dig. That’s three times as many as there were different trucks pitted against one another this year!

MT is absolutely correct that the truck world moves slower than the car world. Because of that slowness, and the ridiculously small field, the editors of MT should have had the foresight to make an exception and simply postpone the competition until next year. I mean, what if the Sport Trac was the only contender? Would they have won by default? Besides, the trucks from this year will only be better in the 2008 model year, so why not compare then? I would have much rather seen an American-made truck win in a field with real contenders, not cloned models from the same company (and, I’m betting Rick Wagoner, GM’s chairman, would have liked to lay the smack-down on Toyota as well).

So, here’s my proposition. Since, as MT so accurately points out, the lifespan of a truck is so long, why not make TOTY the “Truck of Every-Other Year?” That way, there would always be a significantly-large field of contenders, and the winner would always have the satisfaction of whooping up on the other entrants (instead of itself).