This year’s Ultimate Shine Competition ran from 30 September until 14 December 2011 attracting dozens of stunning entries. Once the public vote closed it was the job of our judges to sift through the entries to pick out their choice of which car they thought deserved the title – this being no easy feat. The thousands of public votes contributed to 50% of the points in the final tally, Judges 40% and Meguiar’s NZ having the tough final vote.

Our judges were the editors of Petrolhead, Rodder, NZV8 Magazine, NZ Performance Car Magazine, NZ Hot Rod Magazine, Classic Driver, and NZ Classic Car Magazine and Darlene Smits, the Managing Director of Meguiar’s New Zealand

"It was great to see such a wide variety of cars enter the competition this year," says Darlene Smits. "The hi-gloss and reflective shines on several of these cars were incredible.  We have some beautiful cars in this country and some very proud owners.  I’m just happy that I had so much help with the judging!"

 The objective of the Ultimate Shine Competition is to reward the car(s) that best represent the ULTIMATE SHINE, therefore it all comes down to the shine and reflection seen on the vehicles in the photos. The entry criteria was simple – your car had to be shiny, giving off a mirror like reflective shine.  The chosen cars best represent what Meguiar’s stands for as a brand.  Selection is made not for the type of car but on how the car presents.

The winning Ford GT Torino was not only favoured by many of the judges but it also won a lot of public votes.

“The reflections shown in all angles of the GT Torino is the perfect example of how Meguiar’s products can enhance a paint finish with the winning photo beautifully reflecting the surrounding environment” says Darlene Smits.

The prize for winning the title was a $1,000 cash prize, a huge Meguiar’s product prize pack and a VIP photo shoot. Our final selection was so close, that our four runner’s up became a five, with prizes being presented to Barry Tetley’s candy apple red AC Cobra, Tony Garratt’s 1978 Kandy Red Camaro, Mike Dickson’s yellow Camaro,  the best classic car was Douglas Dickson’s 1961 Alvis TD21 and best import goes to Sam Longley’s RX2 S2 Sedan.

There were various other highly commended vehicles in the competition including,  Lloyd’s 1967 Corvette Coupe, Gerry Power’s VH Charger, Grant and Raewyn’s 1971 Ford Mustang Mach 1, Rex Coubray’s 1996 Mini Cooper, 1972 VW Superbeetle with it’s 39 year old paint job and Scott and Sherin’s Chevy Apache Pick-up.

Of course, we had to make note of some of the cutie pie photos from Gordon from Final Touch and his 1988 Chevrolette Silverado, Karena Gaudson’s 1963 VW Beetle and Daniel Southall’s 1969 Chevrolette SS Camaro – training up our future enthusiasts from a young age.

The competition is scheduled to run again from September 2012 when the New Zealand’s Ultimate Shine title will be re-crowned, and people can expect it to be bigger and better than ever.

To view the runner-ups and other winners, click here.