I guess we don't really have a Car of the Month on 914 World anymore?

What a bummer.
Used to look forward to this casual competition.
But mainly looked forward to the amazing 914's the site would produce.
No more I guess...what a pity.

Love these cars and they need to be celebrated.
That's just my lowly opinion.
Cheers everyone.

i nominate @StarBear 's 74.

original owner.
original car.
and its green.

and.............i am green with envy.

i'd love to open up the website to a big splash of green,

....is it just me?.....how has this car not been COTM? An absolute badass car. IMHO everything the 914 was meant to be.


Click to view attachment

Yea, I was just thinking about it. No offense to the current one but it’s nice to see a different car each month. Maybe change it to “featured car of the month” and just have whoever is making the changes, pick a different type of 914 each month. Stock, modified, rusty, four, six, race car, etc.

Apparently it is too much work.

We all have full time jobs, plus working on our 914s and this......

Do you want to be in charge of it?

I'm sure there is some work, but many of us look forward to it

Great idea!

Sent it in to 914Rubber for next year’s calendar.

I'm pretty sure he just volunteered ...

Sure, I'd be happy to do that. I do it presently at my Watered Down 914 site. I just choose a pic of one of our cars and one click of the mouse later, bingo. PM me the directions on how to do that here Clay.

Nice idea! Andy had explained it to me to see if I wanted to try doing it, but after seeing the way the 'ruffle' works, I had to decline the offer simply because the system is too convoluted the way it's set right now.

A simple random showcase seems more doable... after all, it's always the same car, and what's nice to me might be ugly to you, or vice versa, so who cares, heheh… Let's show them all!

That's not how the CotM here works.
Anyone can pick a random picture and declared it "CotM".



Here's the actual workflow:
- Start a thread asking for nominations
- Let that thread run for x days
- For a nomination to be eligible, it has to be validated by at least one other member and the nominated car can not be a previous CotM winner.
- Collect all eligible nominations, contact each of the owners and get some info about their cars (see current homepage for an example of info needed) as well as pictures
- Then start another thread, this time a poll containing all nominated cars with info and pictures
- Let that thread run for x days
- Close the poll thread and announce a winner
- Grab the winner's info, description and details as well as the images and email them to me so i can make a new homepage

Bob B

Nothing personal Andy but IMHO maybe this process could be streamlined and still give people what they want e.i.; to have a monthly rotational view of our members well done or even unusual 914's. I'm not sure they want to vote on it as much as to see what our members have built. Many times the COTM's are popularity contests in reality. And even then member participation is anemic. More so in the last few years. This is what I envisioned. Have members PM me 3 of their fav pics of their 914 along with a description of their build. Then select one car a month from that pool by myself or a forum of admins. More importantly we'd have a new view once every month. I respect and appreciate all that you do and have done for this community and can live with whatever you decide. What do you say Andy? Less moving parts and still entertain the group.

First Rule of Little League Management - Put the complainer in charge of what they are complaining. Shuts them up forever

We tried something like that in the beginning and were quickly accused of playing favorites.
Which is why we went with the public poll route.

It'll be hard to be objective and put your personal preferences aside.

But as far as i'm concerned, we should give it a try.
A biased car of the month is still better than no car of the month.

a bit of bias never went astray - only lasts a month - can't do much harm.

any 914 is a good 914 in my book.
customized, half wrecked, hot rodded to the hilt, survivor, over-restored, rotting in a paddock.
you name it - its a 914.

Way to go.

How bout:


Keep the rules above but amend them so that one member could vacate the COTM if they don't like it?

Do It...you know the Thing (COTM) this car, and followed by about 914 others !

We've learned a lot of lessons over the years... some of them were quite painful.

Trust Herr Andy. He knows whereof he speaks.

//shifting gears//

I ran COTM for a while. It was very popular in the beginning, but the excitement surrounding the nomination & voting process faded over time.

If we just need refreshed pics on the home page... send good ones to Andy. I bet he'd be willing to change them up to keep things fresh or maybe put them in rotation. (Not trying to workload you, brother.)

For what it's worth, I tend to agree that the entire voting process makes it too complicated ( understand the whole potential "favoritism" issue - but that seems pretty benign) I might also suggest to remove the "OTM" clause and just allow the subject vehicle to be switched on a less-scheduled basis... Just to reduce all unnecessary pressure on those responsible. Thank you for all you do!

Kevin

Love this take, also love the idea of "Featured 914, Month Year" or some such.

Andy's comments make a lot of sense, as do others. Tendency toward popularity contests via public votes with minimal participation, hassle factor, etc etc are all bottlenecks to celebrating great 914s and featuring them. What about knocking it down to something like:

1. Nomination thread with one "second" needed to advance the car for consideration.

2. Owner (or someone) submits 3-5 high quality images with text to a strict format (Year, Model, Color, Mileage, description in X sentences).

3. Small "judging team" makes selections, starts stacking them for upload. Gather 3-6 great cars at a time and adjust "inventory" upward or downward as needed.

The right "judging team" will have an eye for not only high-level 914s presented well but also unusually well-done hot rods, customs, race cars, high-mile survivors, barn finds, cars rotting away, etc etc. When I have judged concours, the best judging teams have a collective eye for the cars they're judging and are allowed to lean into that together. Lesser teams prize clean cars over better cars, lean too heavily on their perceptions re: originality/correctness/etc (often wrongly), or seek to reward a particular owner instead of highlighting the best car.

Seems to me this forum has the right people to make a GREAT judging team, whether anonymous or known, and the goal in this case should be something visually interesting when newcomers land on the home page—and superb photos of a rotting 914 may be an equalizer against a concours winner. A sticky thread with past and present "This Month's Featured 914" could be helpful, as I only see the landing page in the rare cases I fail to surf straight to the Garage.

Just my two cents.

@horizontally-opposed
Where exactly have you been?
http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showtopic=79834

We had that nailed in the garage since 2008.


PS: Not that it is updated on the regular, but still, it's there and sticky

Ha, was waiting to get busted on that.

Should have been more clear: I'd consider replacing the COTM sticky with a Featured 914 sticky as COTM hasn't been up to the level of this forum and has missed too many of the best 914s in the forum.

Call me crazy, but I think a 914 that is featured by the best 914 forum in the world (and perhaps the best automotive forum I've seen over all these years) should be a truly remarkable car or story for newcomers as well as those who have "seen it all."

@horizontally-opposed
If only we had someone with experience in automotive writing, i think we could make this a really nice feature!

I disagree. If we are doing it monthly, I think it should encompass every type 914, From running rust bucket to pristine restoration. An average four to a world class factory 6GT. That’s what makes up the members here and the cars should reflect it.

I don't want to only see "truly remarkable" car or story ONLY. They shouldn't be excluded by any means, but most of the time that might mean whomever spent the most duckets.

Unless we've become PCA...

Hah!!

Please do read my earlier point above, re: enjoying all types of 914s, in full agreement with Wonkipop—as I happen to agree with you.

I've long been interested in all types of 914s…that's where the stories are. So when I said best of the best, the "or story" part mattered. Great images or a great story can stand toe to toe with a "better" cars, and often exceed them when it comes to audience interest…even if the car is rotting away in a field IMO. Or a good EV. Or a RHD conversion. Or or or.

Whether COTM or FOTM, it is more or less editorial content—914world's first foot forward for newcomers and highest recognition of an individual 914. Anyone can post a thread on this forum, which is indeed what's great about 914world. I guess the question is: Should COTM or FOTM should stand apart from regular threads, and why does it keep going stale and coming up? There's a lot of good discussion here.

Ha, you've actually got a few.

Also, I'm not sure it's right to have a professional run this—but I'd be happy to consult at no cost on parameters for a judging team as well as pathways to ease production and make it repeatable.

You've done so much for this community, dude, and I am thankful for it.

Well according to my wife, I pay attention to about 20% of anything so there’s a good chance I missed an important point. But this site is the best one on the internet so whatever you guys decide, I’m on board. If I can help in any way, just let me know. You can count on me to get done about 20% of whatever it is.

That's what I was alluding to when I said "view of our members well done or even unusual 914's". The number of concourse or 6's pale in comparison to number of other 914's. If it's interesting write it up.

Which is great.

Car of the quarter should be picked by past winners

It's been almost a month. Any updates on this?

There is interest, and like many I would like to see this come alive again

I beg to differ: Clay is a very busy guy and shouldn’t be saddled with this. In fact, anything that helps him to make 914s more and more enticing is time worth protecting.

This. This is why COTM is such a PIA. Weeks of "ideas" that generate more work for Andy and the admins. So many ideas that seem simple but then get twisted into a mess. My vote goes to Andy. He sees a cool pic of a 914 and he makes it the face of 914 world. No voting. No consensus. Andy just says ya, thats a cool pic and makes it the cover pic of the site and we all say thanks Andy for the cool pic and giving us 914 World!

Yeah, that's sounds fine.

Simple solution if somebody knows how to do it-

1. Forget the "Car of the Month" concept.

2. Everyone submits a favorite picture of their own car.

3. Program the homepage so that each time you log on, you will see a random image of a members car.

This way, everyone gets to be in the limelight and you get to see a whole lot more 914s.

Osnabruck914

This is my favorite option yet. I think you would need a verification step to keep the spammers from submitting dick pics but otherwise, this is the least amount of work and keeps the front page fresh.

Zach

Just send my d pic in

Why don't we have whoever is interested zip up a file with pictures and bio. Then each month or quarter, grab a zip file and post it.