For those of you who expected to come back and see my posting of my favorite Top 10 Car-toons of all time I have to apologize.  Three things happened; 1) I realized that getting the permission to use them was going to take more than a week, 2) I realized that today is the one year anniversary of this website and 3) SOPA!  So let me get my SOPA rant out of the way first.  The same government that ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████  cannot ██████████████████████████████  and your freedoms are ████████████████████████████████████.

Today’s internet is a wonderful thing.  Thanks to the special ability of this software to see inside your homes – we actually know what you have been searching for over the past year.  So, considering number 1 was going to be tough and in honor of the SOPA protest, I decided to do number 2 (insert crude bathroom humor here).

1) Top Overall – Top Concept Vehicle

This race was not even close.  Over the past year you guys (and gals) searched for concept cars more than any other thing.  And the cars that finished in 3rd, 4th and 5th place were so close I had to declare it a tie between the Chevrolet Miray, The Jaguar C-X16 and the Mercedes F125.  Second place was something unusual, the electric motorcycle concept by Chris Nichols.  But the winner was going to be clear ever since I published the first pictures taken by Daniele Madia at the Geneva show last year.  Your winner? The gorgeous Alfa Romeo 4C.

Alfa Romeo 4c Concept - photo by Daniele Maida

2) Top Production Vehicle

Also a race that was not close at all.  At least there was no question what finished up in the 3rd sport, the Subaru BRZ.  Second was the Hyundai Veloster and the winner by a more than 2:1 margin…the Audi A6.

2012 Audi A6

3) Top Person

So if the first two were not close, then the third one should not be either.  And it wasn’t.  In 3rd place was yours truly, although I did get some help from the people who stumbled here accidentally looking for the musician Frank Schwartz.  If it wasn’t for him I am sure either Ken Lingenfelter or Frank Stephenson would have finished in my place.  2nd place went to master photographer Daniele Madia.  The winner, though, had more than four times as many searches as Daniele – so I suspect he had some family help (just like American Idol).  Congrats to Chris Nichols.

Who is the real Chris Nichols?

4) Top Party

One thing I know about designers is that they enjoy a good party.  And that was made readily apparent when I realized more people searched for parties than for people.  In 3rd place was our own Designer Night at the Races.  Second was the annual bash at Camilo’s loft – Designers Night.  But the clear winner was the Designer’s Party at the IAA in Frankfurt.  People were even searching for the party’s address on our site.

The Designer's Party at the IAA in Frankfurt

5) Top Automotive Component

There were a lot of searches for various interior components and if you add them all up they finished in 3rd place.  Colored wheels finished a distant second.  But for whatever reason (maybe because they are beautiful), the winner was the Bentley Mulsanne Headlamps.

Bentley's jewel-like headlamps

6) Top Location

This one should come as no surprise.  In 3rd place was the Lingenfelter Collection, a personal museum of sorts right here in the Detroit area.  2nd place went to Autostadt at Volkswagen’s Headquarters in Wolfsburg.  But the clear winner was the Playboy Mansion (thanks again to Murray for inviting me).

The infamous Grotto

7) Top Day for Traffic

While my host does not keep the full data for every day since the blog can online, it didn’t have too for me to figure out which day generated the most traffic.  Monday, January 16th was the winner.  Why that day?  The Monday after the Detroit Auto Show opened is why.  A close second was the day the results and pictures from the Designer Night at the Races was posted.  Remember when I said designers like a party?  Well they also have an ego (and love to see their name in the results).

The 2012 NAIAS in Detroit

8) Top Referrer

Which websites sent the most traffic to our blog?  The website for our consulting business was 3rd and LinkedIn was 2nd (if you are not LinkedIn with me and want to be – click here).  But it is no surprise that the number one referrer was the various search engines (and mainly Google).

Google's SOPA Protest

9) Top Post

Of the 53 posts we have written over the past year, which were the most viewed?  3rd place was a virtual toss-up between the 2011 IDSA Meeting in Troy, Michigan and the 2011 Autorama.  2nd was the 2011 Geneva Auto Show.  But the winner was the Lawrence Tech Transportation Design first class of graduates.

10) Top friends of the Blog

This is the one category where I cannot rank the contributors.  Without all of you, this would not be possible (actually, I could still write these things but really, what’s the point of that?).  So to all the automotive designers and design students around the world who have visited here, I thank you.

Come back Friday to read 10 Questions with Andreas Nilsson of Volvo.