Best Motorcycle 2014: 2013 Lamley Awards: Announcing the Reader's and Lamley Choices for Best Super TH of 2013...

Get your tuxes and gowns out folks, it is time for the unveiling of the 2013 Lamley Awards...

From now until New Year's Day, we will be unveiling the winners in several categories. There will be two in each category - both the Reader's Choice and the Lamley Choice. The Reader's Choice was determined by voting a few weeks ago, and the Lamley Choice is what we consider the worthy winner.

So check back often, and let us know what you think...

Is there anything as great and horrible as the Super Treasure Hunt in the collecting world? There is nothing like finding a Super. It doesn't happen that often, but it is hard to forget those sporadic occasions when you do come across one. Plus, Hot Wheels has made the Super TH purely a collector-aimed model, so the plethora of muscle, JDM, and sports cars in the Super TH lineup is a joy.

But Super TH's and the obsessive pursuit of them by others has reduced our hobby in some ways to nothing better than what the Beanie Babies were a few years ago. Watching youtube videos of so-called collectors throwing cool casting after cool casting aside to get whatever they think is hard-to-find is depressing. Make no mistake, we at Lamley are about the cars, and their link to all the gearheads out there. But there are a lot of collectors out there who don't care about what they are picking up, just as long as it is rare. That is a bummer, but that comes with the territory.

But the fact is the Super TH is the defining model of every year now. No model is talked about more, obsessed over, complained about, and collected. So thankfully Mattel has made them deserving of all the banter. In 2013, there really was not a bad Super in the bunch. Yes, we voted on a worst, but if you really look at it, all 15 were gems.

So that leads to the 2013 winner of the Lamley Award for Best Super Treasure Hunt. Each year there are two winners - one from our readers, and one from us - but in 2013 both parties agreed. The Lamley Award for Best Super TH of 2013 goes to...

...The Toyota 2000GT!

And it wasn't even close. The 2000GT took 28% of the votes, with the '62 Corvette coming in second with 14%. It was a landslide. In case you are wondering, the Top 5 vote-getters were:

1. 28% - Toyota 2000GT
2. 14% - '62 Corvette
3. 10% - Toyota Tundra
4. 08% - '67 Camaro
5. 07% - Ford Shelby GT-500 Super Snake

Yes, yes, we know. The Lamley Group is JDM-centric, and it should not be a surprise to see a Toyota win. Our polls are by no means scientific. But the landslide is not easy to ignore. Many voters came from HWC, as well as from other countries, and the passion for the 2000GT was clear. We did think the '67 would fare better, as it was a stunning model, but the '62 Corvette was impossible to ignore for a lot of collectors.

But let's see what the Toyota 2000GT had going for it:

1. It is a JDM icon. The 2000GT is now on the map in the car world. Not just in the Japanese car collecting world, but in the car world in general. In the last year, one fetched over $1 million at auction, and as the JDM car scene has grown in popularity, so has appreciation for the the granddaddy of them all. JDM Hot Wheels fans have been clamoring for this one for a long time, so no matter how it was released, it was going to be a big deal.

2. It is the first Hot Wheels model to make its casting debut as a Super TH. Now I will admit to not knowing my 1995-2004 Treasure Hunt history well, but as far as I know no model has debuted as a Treasure Hunt. I do know no new model has debuted as a Super TH since Supers were unveiled in 2007. Of course this was not done on purpose. The 2000GT was slated for the final batch of the 2012 HW Racing premium line, but the line was cancelled before the final batch was put into production. Clearly the casting was already slated to be in the mainline, as well as be a Super TH, before the cancellation of the Racing line, so the model progressed as planned.

3. The model is beautiful. A car that shares similar lines with an E-Type Jag is already a stunner. Add dark spectraflame red and black GT Real Riders, and you have a stunner.

4. It has a metal base. Maybe it was left over from the defunct Racing models, but the Super sported a heavy metal base, while the regular was plastic. That doesn't happen a lot, but collectors love it when it does.

This makes for a fantastic Super Treasure Hunt. Surprise, surprise, but we wholeheartedly agree with our readers, and the Toyota is our choice as well. It was fun to unveil the news that the 2000GT was coming, and that it would be a Super TH. It was actually this time last year that we got the news, and our unveiling of that news is probably the greatest contributing factor to putting Lamley on the collector map. So we appreciate it for that reason as well.

If we had to rank the best Super TH's ever, this would be at the top of our list, just above the Ferrari 599XX from 2012. Of course that can always change, but it is hard to know what model could dethrone it. (Kenmeri in '72 Tokyo Motor Show racing livery on gold Wats. Too specific?)

(Find the 2000GT Super TH on ebay