[localtalent]

Two issues I see here:

1. Ultimately, there's a fairly finite universe of cars that meet your criteria, even if you consider the much wider used market. If you pick, say, an EVO MR, how do you pick who gets the prize when multiple people would have suggested it?

2. We ran into this a lot on our automotive board. Someone says 'I want RWD, MT, 4 doors, under $35k' and got a bunch of answers.

But cars are ultimately pretty personal - e.g. I hate VW's interiors, but many love them. Since you've got to go look at them personally, at best you're narrowing down the universe of things to go check out. Unless you're committing to buy the one that gets the most votes.

Could be interesting collect the responses, graph them, and run some analysis on how vocal each brand's fan community is.