{"id":21721,"date":"2018-01-18T13:59:36","date_gmt":"2018-01-18T17:59:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/henrypayne.com\/?p=21721"},"modified":"2018-01-18T13:59:36","modified_gmt":"2018-01-18T17:59:36","slug":"payne-how-my-bets-fared-for-vehicles-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/2018\/01\/payne-how-my-bets-fared-for-vehicles-of-the-year","title":{"rendered":"Payne: How my bets fared for vehicles of the year"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"speakable-p-1 p-text\">The 2018 North American Car, Truck, and SUV race has been run and my horses didn\u2019t win the trifecta. Heck, I didn\u2019t even win a two-fecta.<\/p>\n<p class=\"speakable-p-2 p-text\">I\u2019m one of 58 jurors for the North American Car, Utility and Truck of the Year Awards, and every year we separate the industry\u2019s latest models into three neat classes, whittle the contenders to three over a year-long marathon, and then vote our picks. They\u2019re announced Monday at the opening of the Detroit auto show.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p-text\">The Honda Accord sedan beat my pick for Car of the Year, the Kia Stinger. The Volvo XC60 nipped my Alfa Romeo Stelvio thoroughbred for SUV. Even my only winning entry, the Lincoln Navigator, for truck, feels weird.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p-text\">The stunning Navigator is an SUV, after all, but was classified as a truck because \u2014 in a product cycle anamoly \u2014 the only new pickup for the 2018 model year was the ZR2 trim of the Chevrolet Colorado; the truck was introduced way back in 2014. So the truck-based Navigator and Ford Expedition \u2014 both built on the F-150\u2019s bones \u2014 got pushed into the truck race. Kind of like Clydesdales racing an ox, don\u2019t you think?<\/p>\n<p class=\"p-text\">I asked Lincoln boss Kumar Galhotra if he really wanted to market the Navi as Truck of the Year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p-text\">\u201cIt means recognition of the brand we\u2019re building,\u201d he grinned next to the gorgeous NACTOY trophy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p-text\">The race for best car was a classic. The favorites were the Accord and Toyota Camry. With nimble handling and sleek, coupe-like shapes, the \u201918 models are the best Accord and Camry ever.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The 2018 North American Car, Truck, and SUV race has been run and my horses didn\u2019t win the trifecta. Heck, I didn\u2019t even win a two-fecta. I\u2019m one of 58 jurors for the North American Car, Utility and Truck of the Year Awards, and every year we separate the industry\u2019s latest models into three neat [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21721"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21721"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21721\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21722,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21721\/revisions\/21722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}