2006 Dean Bachelor Award

To most Americans the letters MPG stand for miles per gallon. But for around 750 journalists, photographers and public relations professionals, MPG also is the initials of the Motor Press Guild, a Los Angeles/Orange County-based organization dedicated to the highest ideals of automotive journalism and promoting education and information exchange within the motoring press.

One of the major events on the MPG calendar every year is the Dean Batchelor Award Dinner. Dean’s passion for automobiles spanned many disciplines, from aircraft builder and B-17 flyer to automotive journalist. He was the consummate historian and researcher, editor, author, racer, designer and hot rodder. No matter what he was involved with at the time, Dean did it with style and with the highest ethical and professional standards.

Following his death in 1994, and to honor his memory and contributions to the automobile industry, the Motor Press Guild instituted the Dean Batchelor Award in order to recognize the best. The Award singles out persons demonstrating outstanding achievement in automotive journalism and communications.

This year the award was expanded to include category winners for best Articles, Books, Photography and Audio/Visual. Entries were judged against others in their respective category with one winner named for each category. Then the Dean Batchelor Award was selected from among the four category winners.

This year's winners of the MPG Best of the Year awards are:

Article Category: Pete Lyons, "Heroes Are Human, Too," an article in Vintage Racecar magazine on former Formula 1 Champion and Indy 500 winner Graham Hill.

Book Category: Mark Christensen, "So-Cal Speed Shop," a history of the Southern California hot rod movement as told from the viewpoint of Alex Xydias who started the So-Cal Speed Shop to supply the parts and knowledge needed by hot rodders first in Los Angeles and then across the Nation.

Photography Category: Stan Papior for the photos that illustrated the Insideline.com story, "The World's Greatest Driving Road."

Audio/Visual Category: Chris Szwedo, "A Gullwing at Twilight, the Bonneville Ride of John Fitch," a documentary on the attempt of racing great, John Fitch, to set a new land speed record in a 300SL Mercedes at the age of 88.

2006 Dean Batchelor Award: Among the four top finalists, the 2006 Dean Batchelor Award was presented to Mark Christensen for his book "So-Cal Speed Shop."

WheelsTV had entries in the Audio/Visual category, but we didn’t take a podium spot this year. You can be darn sure that we’ll be doubling our efforts next year.

About the photos:

2006 Dean Batchelor Award winner Mark Christensen and Alex Xydias, left to right.

The Dean Batchelor Award was designed by Gene Garfinkle and John Pyle with sponsorship by Ford Motor Company. The resin-cast Dean Batchelor Award symbolizes the “So-Cal Streamliner” race car that Batchelor designed and helped build in 1949.