My lords, ladies and gentlemen, please be upstanding and raise your glasses to the Toyota GT86

Jeremy Clarkson of Top Gear waxes lyrical on why he picked the Toyota GT86 as his favourite car of 2012.

While driving through America recently, James May and I happened upon a car of such unparalleled awfulness that we slowed down to get a closer look. It was called a Nissan Versa, and I simply can't imagine what the design team was thinking of when they were styling it. The Austin A35, probably.

Both of us agreed it was the worst car we had ever seen and that, in all of our lives, we'd never encounter a machine that we'd like the look of less. But then, round the very next corner, we stumbled upon a Chevrolet something or other which was even more terrible. Part Chrysler PT Cruiser and part Morris Traveller, it was a disjointed mishmash of nothing that anyone likes.

And then later, while hanging around in a San Diego car park, we noticed another car. We had no idea what it was. It had four wheels, four doors and was made from metal. There were windows and doors, and neither of us could come up with a single reason why someone should have bought such a thing.

It wasn't as stupid as the Nissan and Chevy we'd seen earlier. In fact, it wasn't stupid at all. Nor was it ugly. It was nothing. It was just a car-shaped hole in the view. Later, we learned what it was. We even found out which model. But we can't remember now.

From left: Julie Flintoff, Gaye & Graeme Bloomfield, Stella Bloomfield, Brian Flintoff at Tahuna Beach with their amazing sun sand sculpture. Photo: Sinead Ogilvie, Nelson Weekly.

Local Monaco residents Julie & Brian Flintoff love the Nelson summer sun.
Last weekend they stepped up and did their bit in the fight to bring back the crown as the Sunshine Capital of New Zealand to Nelson, a title lost last year to rival sun city Whakatane.

When they heard from Bowater Hyundai last week that there was a compeition on to win a brand new Hyundai Santa Fe they began planning an epic sand sculpture. Their design is based around the old Maori legend of Maui snaring the sun. In this case it is all of us snaring the sun, and "encouraging" it to stick around so we can win back the crown.

Brian Flintoff is a professional, and experienced, jade and bone carver. He is quite comfortable working in the "3-D", but working in sand is an entirely new artistic endeavour. Not phased by this he gathered in the family and headed off to Tahunanui Beach last Saturday morning. They had a plan in mind but didn't quite know how it would all come together.

We discovered that they had built their scuplture when it appeared on the front page of the Nelson Weekly today. We think they did a fantastic job, but they now need our collective help to win the car.