This Cool car poll was almost as amusing as the one I mentioned in my reply to the "how long have you had your pagoda" thread.
My car is just a driver and it is a third car so I let my 3 kids drive it to high school for their junior and senior years. They had to get there for 6:15 AM for marching band and didn't get out until 6:30 PM because of water polo, swim team and track practice so it worked out pretty well. My youngest helped me paint, redo the interior and rebuild the suspension (including the 3.27 rear end transplant) during the summer before his senior year so it looked almost like a show car when he had it.
When the student newspaper announced a cool car contest he was sure that our classic red convertible would win hands down.
In the poll, however, the Pagoda did not make the top five. When he and his friends inquired as to why, the judges explained that it was not eligible because they thought it was a replica car. The winner of the contest had a Honda Accord coupe and was awarded the prize because of extensive modifications to the car (he had installed a blinking license plate, some purple lights under the car and one of those big round exhaust tips that he got at Auto Zone! They reasoned that with the skill required to make those modifications, he was a real automobile enthusiast.
As to the question of why they thought that a "Pagoda" was a replica car, the explanation was that all of the real cars that any of the judges knew about had power windows, automatic transmission, power tops and air conditioning. They just figured that our 230 Sl was something put together by a chop shop.
So it is not surprising at all that the Pagoda did not make the top 100. Maybe the voters in the poll were not even alive when the last Pagoda rolled off the line.
Tom Hughes
St. Louis
