We unveiled our RPM Awards in the November issue of Maxim, featuring the seven of the sweetest rides 2008 has to offer. The Honor Roll is the best of the rest…

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HORSEPOWER TO THE PEOPLE AWARD
2009 Pontiac G8 GXP
Not only does the Pontiac G8 GXP get a 402-horsepower V-8 engine plucked from the ’Vette, but it does so at a bargain-basement price of less than 40 grand. Cue the Darwin Awards!

THIRSTIEST RIDE 2009
Honda Fit
The tiny, fuel-efficient Fit isn’t much bigger than a Smart car, but it boasts 10 cup­holders. Drink up!

WORST MODEL DEATH
2008 BMW Z4 M Coupe
This supercoupe was a Bavarian cobra, an iconoclastic beauty with 330 hp and more pure bite than anything this side of the Lotus Exige. Too bad nobody bought the damn thing. The Z4 is now spinning its wheels in its grave—though its spirit will live on in Larry’s Discount Used Car Lot.

MOST SEDUCTIVE SEATS
Maybach Landaulet
This backseat is more spacious than a Manhattan hotel room, with a decadent al fresco roof and sexily adjustable seats that will have the ladies gasping before you make a move. Raise the sliding privacy panel to keep your creepy chauffeur’s eyes on the road. If this car can’t get you laid, you really did waste $1.35 million.

“FLOOR IT!” AWARD
Island Pond, Vermont
The coast is clear: After 25 years residents dumped Ted Miller, the constable who made this rural Vermont intersection a notorious speed trap. Miller was a Tolstoy of tickets; his prolific and imaginative citations—including “Stop Not Sincere”—totaled more than $100,000 in 2007, 10 percent of the town’s revenue. This spring merchants fed up with Miller’s tactics helped a 28-year-old with no police experience oust him from office.

BEST PLACE TO SPY FUTURE GM CARS
The Set of Transformers 2
The Nürburgring is so 2007. To get the real scoop on future GM rides, look for online photos of the set of Transformers 2, a veritable celluloid showroom of shamelessly hawked GM vehicles. The question is: Are the Chevy Volt and Corvette Centennial Coupe worthy replacements for a plot line and character development?


BEST CAR TO BLOW YOUR EARDRUMS
2009 Jaguar XF
The Jaguar XF sounds as pretty as it looks, with an audiophile sound system by Bowers & Wilkins, the U.K. audio designer whose reference speakers became a staple of classic recording studios from Abbey Road to Deutsche Grammophon. The 14-speaker system features B&W’s nuanced sound and sparkling separation, with Kevlar speakers and aluminum tweeter domes. If you just overdosed on all that audiophile douchery, we advise you to lie down in a quiet room for a while.

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