Now that you've seen our most popular stories from 2013 we thought you'd like to see the stories that are notable for reasons other than pleasing some sort of Facebook algorithm. This year had everything: Mormon scammers, European adventures, and Beetles both stolen and flipped.
Has there ever been a better year at Jalopnik? I think not. It's been our biggest year ever in terms of readers as well as content. More exclusives. More reviews. More everything.
Thanks to the amazing staff here at Jalopnik for their unparalleled work. Thanks to Gawker for giving us a new, extremely usable platform and otherwise letting us write whatever we want. And thanks to you, the reader, for your contributions. Everyone I speak with seems to agree that we've got the best commenting community on the web, an amazing feat when you consider how many of you there are.
Without further ado, here are our favorites. Drop your favorites in the comments if you wish.
Jason's Beetle — a car he's had his entire adult life — was stolen. Then you found it.
Here's the most incredible thing about today: my prized Beetle has had its eyes gouged out, its hood and decklid battered, it bumpers mangled, roof rack stolen, radio gone, and the entire engine brutally extracted, and all I can think about is how amazingly wonderful people are.
You've got Jalopnik's back, and we've got your back. An ongoing con by a company called "Super Replicas" left a trail of victims who just wanted a reasonably nice car at an unreasonably good price.
With some of the best reportage done by anyone in the car space this year, Patrick George shined a lot on their questionable business practices and tracked down the religious extremist behind it.
We sent Travis Okulski and the great GF Williams to Europe to drive the Stelvio Pass and find out if it's as good as everyone says. It wasn't. But they found four better roads with the help of a Porsche Cayman. Some of the best photography of 2013 as well as one of our crazier trips.
One of my favorite additions to the staff this year is NASCAR driver and all-around great guy Parker Kligerman. His response to Donovan McNabb's idiotic comments about NASCAR drivers wasn't combative, it was just honest and well-reasoned.
When Raphael used his monthly bonus to buy a Volkswagen instead of a new computer I sort of expected this to happen. At least we got a story out of it and everyone was ok.
A story that makes both the "most popular" and "favorite" lists this year by frequent Kinja-er and otherwise popular guy Doug DeMuro. A true Jalopnik exclusive that was covered by everyone. Just remember it was covered here best and first.
Plenty of people wrote about the new Lamborghini Veneno at the Geneva Motor Show this year, but Mate went the extra step by tracking down the guys who bought the car. Site unseen. For $4 million each. Cars are interesting but people are even better.
People say dumb things. People like Kyle Petty, who said Danica Patrick is "not a race car driver." The quote wasn't out of context, he meant it. This response pretty much sums up how we felt about it.
We actually had to do this post twice, as some in the media continued to confuse the concept of "commuting culture" and "car culture" and perceived Millennials as a bunch of children distracted by their shiny phones as opposed to the reality they continue to underreport, which is that young people in this country face huge student loan debt and fewer prospects than the generations writing about them.
Before we hired Zac Estrada full-time he got to borrow a Ford Raptor for a few days. I got an angry call from the person who let him borrow the car asking why, exactly, it wasn't returned on time. Umm… because Raptor?
We drove a ton of cars this year, including the Volkswagen XL1 in Germany. You could argue it's the 21st century supercar.
Or you could argue this is the ultimate 21st century supercar.
Ending the year with a bang. Literally. Raphael crashed the damn thing.
The Best Jalopnik Stories Of 2013