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KBB 2013 Brand Image Awards has some obvious and oddball winners

The sixth edition of the Kelley Blue Book Brand Image Awards have crowned a wide range of winners - in a couple of cases the recipient of the laurels might say more about KBB users than they do about the actual winner. Compiled from the responses of more than 12,000 shoppers on KBB.com over the past year, there are 13 categories broken into non-luxury, luxury and truck segments "representing the combined wisdom of the American car-buying public."
The award categories have been revamped this year, with some dropping off, some new ones appearing and at least one other given a new term. What isn't surprising is that Honda won Most Trusted Brand for the second year running, Best Value Brand for the third year in a row and took Best Overall Brand, which wasn't on last year's list of awards.
On our own shores, in the non-luxury categories Chrysler got Most Refined Brand and Buick took Best Value Luxury Brand. Neither one of those marques won anything in last year's Brand Image Awards, while Cadillac, which won Best Interior Design Brand and Best Comfort Brand last year - those awards disappeared this year - went home without a single accolade.

And the Top Gear UK Cars of the Year for 2013 are...

Those loony Brits at Top Gear have named their Car of the Year, and if you're thinking it's the McLaren P1, Jaguar F-Type, Land Rover Range Rover Sport or Rolls-Royce Wraith, we're sorry to inform you that none of those Anglo automobiles earned the crown. In fact, the winner of Top Gear's most prestigious award is quite the surprise.
Of course, those cars weren't without their own awards. The P1 was the top hypercar (sorry, Porsche 918 and Ferrari LaFerrari), while the F-Type netted best convertible and the Range Rover Sport was voted SUV of the Year. Other honorable mentions included the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG Black and S-Class, the Porsche 911 GT3, the BMW i3 and the Ferrari 458 Speciale. The winner, though, wasn't even a high-dollar supercar. It was the Ford Fiesta ST.
Yes, the Fiesta ST beat out some off-the-wall cars like the revolutionary Volkswagen XL1 and the bonkers Peugeot 208 T16 Pikes Peak, not to mention all the cars we listed above, to take the title of Top Gear Car of the Year. And if you've driven one, you'll completely understand why.

Ford's Mulally makes shortlist for Microsoft CEO

Ford CEO Alan Mulally has made the short list to take over tech giant Microsoft, lending further credence to rumors that the 68-year-old former Boeing exec would ditch Dearborn and move to Redmond.
The report comes from Reuters, which claims that alongside Mulally, former Nokia CEO Stephen Elop and three candidates from within Microsoft are on the short list to succeed Steve Ballmer at the company's helm, although previous reports claim the Ford exec is the number one candidate. Mulally is currently working without a contract, although Bill Ford seems to believe that he isn't likely to depart. Despite this belief, Ford was quoted just last month talking about the depth of talent on the Blue Oval's executive team.
"There is no change from what we announced last November. Alan remains fully focused on continuing to make progress on our One Ford plan. We do not engage in speculation," said Ford spokesman Jay Cooney.